Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  Thankfully, Penny wasn’t like that. Three weeks before the big day, without prompting she brought up the subject of Jack’s birthday herself. ‘He wouldn’t be happy if you weren’t there,’ she’d said, handing me Jack’s invite handwritten in purple felt tip. ‘No matter what’s happened we’re still a family and we need to remember that.’

  It was Penny who answered the door. She was wearing jeans and the grey mohair Whistles jumper I’d bought her for Christmas. She’d had her hair done, a short choppy style that made her look even younger than she already did. If she was trying to make me feel bad by looking like she could pull any man she pleased then she had accomplished her mission. However much as I appreciated that I wasn’t her desired audience I found it almost impossible to stop looking at her.

  ‘You look great. New hair?’

  ‘Just fancied a change.’

  ‘Well it looks amazing.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘Come in.’

  I stepped past her, tapping the present under my arm with my index finger. ‘Where’s the birthday boy?’

  Penny closed the door and gestured up the stairs. ‘On the loo. He’s been so excited that he hasn’t been for a poo since the day before yesterday. He’ll be there forever.’

  ‘And Rosie?’

  ‘On her way back from a sleepover at Carly’s.’ The doorbell rang and she turned to answer it. ‘I’d better get this. Why don’t you go and say hello to everyone in the kitchen and I’ll send Jack in when he’s done?’

  The kitchen.

  The one full of Penny’s family. The family who’d heard me make my vows in front of a packed room to ‘forsake all others’. Family who were doubtless aware that I was no longer living at home and why. I didn’t want to face them, I couldn’t. I hadn’t seen Fiona since that day in the car when I’d moved out of this very house. What if the pressure of being back here surrounded by people who hated me made me see Fiona again? I was supposed to be staying calm, avoiding stress, and this situation was anything but. As potentially hostile environments went this was right up there with an afternoon stroll through an Afghan minefield.

  I looked at Penny. ‘Maybe it’s best if I just wait here.’

  Penny shook her head. ‘No Joe, you’re going to have to face them all sometime and it might as well be now.’

  It was like one of those moments in a Western when the bad guy walks into the saloon and everything pauses. The showgirls stop dancing. The fat guy on the piano stops playing and the drinkers cease their chatter waiting to see what will happen next. Penny’s mum glared at me, her stepdad stood, arms folded, wearing a look of disgust and her brother Simon refused to look at me at all. However Simon’s girlfriend, Ruth – much to the mortification of everyone in the room – marched over and gave me a huge hug. I’d always enjoyed Ruth’s company and the fact that she wasn’t allowing family politics to stop her doing what she’d always done made me like her even more.

  However my conversation with Ruth was brought abruptly to a close by the arrival of Rosie, who launched herself into my arms. It was a Clarke family tradition that on a sibling’s birthday the other child got a present too and this year was no different. I gave Rosie a twenty-pound voucher to spend on her phone on games or downloads or whatever it was she was into at that moment. She was so happy that she screamed to the entire room that I was the best dad in the world. The look on Penny’s mum’s face was enough to let me know that it wasn’t an opinion shared by anyone else. Thankfully before anything could be said the doorbell rang again and a harassed-sounding Penny yelled down the stairs, ‘Can you deal with that, Joe? Jack’s had a bit of an . . . accident.’

  It was the kind of message I didn’t need to hear twice and so I answered the door to half a dozen parents and their overexcited children. It was party time and it would be all hands on deck until the issuing of party bags in some three hours’ time. Grateful to finally be of some use I pointed the children towards the crisps and drinks, the adults towards the beer and wine and announced to anyone who cared to listen that the first game of pin the tail on the donkey would be starting in five minutes’ time.

  The afternoon went well, helped in no small part by the free flowing of alcohol from the kitchen that helped all the kids’ parents to get along and the fact that I was an excellent master of ceremonies, making sure that the kids were constantly entertained. Having said that, even I was relieved when, at just after six, Penny called an end to the gathering with the classic: ‘Right everyone, come and get your party bags!’

  ‘I know sometimes I’m guilty of being too subtle,’ said Penny later, returning to the kitchen as I finished loading the dishwasher once everyone else had gone, ‘but honestly little Zachary’s dad just wouldn’t take the hint. Half a bloody hour I’ve been trying to turf him and his son out. It was like he didn’t want to go home!’

  Penny laughed but I didn’t join in. Was this her subtle way of saying it was time for me to go? I’d had such a good time being back at home. I just didn’t want the day to be over.

  ‘I suppose I’d better be heading off too . . . It’s been really great. Thanks for inviting me.’

  Penny looked at me, puzzled. ‘What?’

  ‘You were saying about Zachary’s dad overstaying his welcome and well . . .’

  Penny sighed. ‘And when did you get so sensitive? I wanted Zachary’s dad to go because all he ever talks about is how much money he makes. Do you talk about how much money you make?’ I shook my head and smiled. Chance would be a fine thing. ‘Good,’ said Penny. ‘Now go and watch some TV with Jack. He’s been so distracted having his friends around he’s barely seen you all day.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Jack and I can catch up some other time.’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she replied, ‘and if you’ve got any other plans think again because he already asked at breakfast if you could be in charge of bath- and bedtime.’

  It was after nine as I came downstairs having kissed both Jack and Rosie goodnight. Penny was standing in the kitchen scrubbing at a particularly stubborn greasy handprint on the glass door.

  ‘Can you tell me why the kids feel the need to touch the glass when there’s a handle they can reach right there in front of them?’

  ‘I’m still trying to work out why we bother giving them shoes with laces,’ I replied. ‘The last time they were at mine I watched Rosie spend a good five minutes trying to shove her feet into her sparkly trainers without undoing them. Halfway through I said to her, “Wouldn’t it just be easier to undo the laces?” and she just rolled her eyes as if I was deliberately being dense and carried on about her business.’

  Penny nodded. ‘She’s so lazy sometimes I wonder how she’s ever going to get on in the real world, but then I’ll find her in her bedroom happily beavering away on some project she’s invented for herself just because she’s a bit bored and she convinces me that there is hope after all.’ Penny stopped rubbing at the glass and inspected it with a satisfied look on her face. She gave it one final wipe before placing the sponge and spray back under the kitchen sink. ‘How did you get on upstairs with his Highness?’

  ‘He fell asleep in the middle of telling me all about the plans he has for his next birthday – apparently it’s going to be in a tree house and all his guests will have to swing to it from his bedroom.’

  Penny rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘Do you think he had a good day? It was hard to tell with everything else that was going on.’

  ‘Are you joking? He was still singing the praises of your football cake even as he drifted off to sleep. You did an amazing job today, you really did, even Rosie said so and you know how hard it is to get a compliment out of her these days.’

  Penny smiled, headed over to the fridge and opened the door. ‘I’ve got this that needs finishing if you’re up for it,’ she said, holding up a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay. ‘Or there’s some beer lying about somewhere if the dads didn’t polish it all off.’

  ‘A beer woul
d be good if you’ve got one,’ I replied.

  ‘A beer it is. You flick on the TV and I’ll bring it through.’

  It was dark in the living room and so I shut the curtains and turned on the lights, but the room seemed too bright so I turned them off and switched on the table lamp instead; but the light from that seemed too intimate somehow. I needed the kind of light that didn’t say or mean anything. I needed light without subtext and so I switched the main light back on, and sat on the sofa flicking through the channels.

  I switched the TV off again just as Penny entered the room shielding her eyes as she came in.

  ‘It’s like Wembley stadium under floodlights in here! What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I thought . . . never mind.’ She handed me my beer and switched on the table lamp, turned off the main lights and sat down on the sofa next to me. She was right. This was much better.

  ‘Nothing on then?’

  ‘Not that I could see.’

  Penny put her feet up on the coffee table and took a sip from her glass. ‘I’m so shattered. I was up ’til midnight last night Googling designs for children’s cakes and baking half a dozen cake alternatives for his friends who are either gluten intolerant or allergic to something or other. Remind me again why it is we bother with children’s birthdays?’

  ‘Because we’re too scared not to,’ I replied. ‘We’d never hear the end of it if we didn’t throw them a party.’

  Penny smiled. ‘There have been some good ones though, haven’t there? Do you remember Rosie’s third?’

  ‘How could I forget? Sixteen three-year-old girls in their best party dresses sobbing hysterically at the sight of the Fun Barn’s Birthday Bear.’

  ‘That poor teenager in that horrible flea-ridden suit was more terrified than they were. And he must have wet himself when Rosie’s friend Ella started screaming at him and kicked him in the shins.’

  ‘Another first for the Clarkes. How many families can say they’ve been banned for life from their local Fun Barn for GBH?’

  Penny laughed so much that she spat a mouthful of wine down her top. ‘And how about Jack’s Spiderman party last year? Was there ever a funnier sight than them all sat around the table with their masks halfway up their faces shovelling away jelly and ice cream?’

  ‘How about the vision of two of them peeing in the garden because they wanted to water the plants?’

  ‘That was that evil child Oliver Holland and his oddball sidekick, Reece Owen. That rose bush never did recover from their interference. I’m so glad Jack’s not friends with them any more.’

  ‘But you’re right, there have been some good birthdays.’

  Penny didn’t respond and so I just sipped on my beer wondering if she was thinking about how best to ask me to leave but then as if from nowhere she asked me a question I hadn’t been expecting at all.

  ‘Do you think we’re good parents?’

  ‘Of course, I think we’re great parents. Why?’

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. I felt myself slump into the sofa. We’d had a great day. The first in what felt like forever but now she wanted to ruin it by talking about everything that had gone wrong. Unlike most separated couples I was pretty sure we were making a good fist of a bad job. We were civil to each other; always put the needs of the kids first; and refused to make each other out to be the enemy. Surely these were the things to focus on along with the fact that we were working on getting our marriage back together, not all the bad stuff.

  ‘I think we’re doing the best we can with a bad situation,’ I said.

  ‘But what about what we’re doing to the kids though?’ said Penny. ‘Jack and Rosie miss you so much it’s hard to bear. I didn’t tell you this because I couldn’t see the point but I was half an hour late picking them up from the childminder a few weeks back and Jack was in absolute hysterics. When I got to the bottom of it he said it was because he thought that I’d left him like you’d left us. I tried to correct him, Joe, I really did, but he was inconsolable. The whole thing made me feel like the worst parent in the world.’

  I took Penny’s glass from her hand as she started to cry, set my beer down on the table next to it and took her in my arms. This was the first time since I’d moved out that she had allowed me to show her any kind of affection and it made me miss her and want her with an intensity I hadn’t felt for a long time. Penny must have felt it too because while I was weighing up the pros and cons of going with the moment she leaned in and kissed me and then a small voice called out from upstairs: ‘I feel sick!’

  And that was it. It was all over before it began. Penny unwrapped herself from my arms and began straightening her clothing. The moment and everything that was riding on it had gone.

  ‘I’d better go and check on him,’ said Penny, refusing to meet my eye as she stood up.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I think there’s some of that kids’ antacid stuff in the bathroom cabinet. I’ll go and get it.’

  Penny held up her hand. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s nothing a kiss and a little tummy rub won’t solve but if it doesn’t I’ll find it. I’ll probably be a while though so if you wouldn’t mind letting yourself out that would be great.’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied, rising to my feet. ‘Give him a kiss from me and tell him I’ll speak to him in the morning.’

  22

  ‘It’s because you haven’t been getting any,’ said Van.

  ‘Plus, it was your kid’s birthday,’ said Paul, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘Plus you haven’t been getting any,’ said Van.

  ‘Plus you said you’d both been drinking,’ said Stewart.

  ‘Plus you haven’t been getting any,’ repeated Van. ‘It was like a perfect storm. Acute emotions, plus booze, plus neither of you getting any: if that kid of yours hadn’t interrupted proceedings there’s a good chance that the two of you would have exploded before you’d even reached the sack.’

  ‘That’s all fine,’ I replied, ‘but it’s not exactly the issue is it? The issue is what do I do about it now it’s happened? Do I bring it up? Do I ignore it? What would she want me to do?’

  ‘If you want my advice,’ said Paul, ‘I’d say don’t go there. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘Dude’s right,’ said Van. ‘All you’re doing is stringing out the inevitable.’

  ‘But we kissed!’ I protested. ‘We actually kissed. That’s got to mean something, surely? She’s not come anywhere near me since this whole thing started.’

  Stewart nodded. ‘It’s a tough one, mate – and I speak as someone who took his ex back at least half a dozen times. On the one hand the boys are right: all it does in the end is string out the pain but on the other hand it doesn’t matter what they say because if you love her, you’re going to do it anyway. At the end of the day there are some things in life that you can only find out the hard way.’

  When I first thought about calling together an emergency meeting of the Divorced Dads’ Club in the pub on Sunday afternoon to discuss what had happened with Penny it hadn’t once occurred to me that any one of them let alone all of them would be so convinced that getting back together with Penny would be such a bad idea. It didn’t make sense and yet so far they’d been right about every piece of advice they’d given me.

  ‘It’s a newbie mistake,’ explained Van. ‘And believe me I made it a few times with my girl. I think over the course of the last year we ended up falling into bed half a dozen times and on each and every one of them I was fully convinced that we were getting back together and each and every time we split up again. And they take their toll you know, the break-ups – each one shatters your heart just that little bit more. In the end for the sake of the kids we both made the decision not to let it happen again. Some things are just too dangerous to mess with.’

  Paul nodded. ‘It took me and Lisa three attempts to separate properly. It was terrible for the kids because they never really knew where they stood.’

  �
��It’s true,’ said Stewart. ‘The kids come off worst of all. Every time my ex came back I could see in their eyes that even they didn’t believe they’d be home for long and sure enough they never were. Kids need stability. They need to know where they stand. They need to know that if you say you’re going to stay together you mean it.’

  ‘Of course I mean it,’ I replied. ‘Do you really think that I ever want to go through this again? I can hear what you’re all saying and I understand completely, but this is different. I want Penny back so much it hurts and if I don’t take this chance just because things might not go my way then I might as well give up now.’ I drained my pint glass. ‘Thanks for coming out, guys, you’ve been a real help, but my mind’s made up: I’m getting my family back.’

  It was just after three as I arrived at the house. I didn’t know what I was going to say but I knew exactly how I was going to say it: with power and conviction so that there couldn’t be any other response from Penny except, ‘Let’s work this out.’

  I reached up to ring the doorbell but before I could the front door opened revealing Penny, Rosie and Jack dressed as though they were about to go out.

  ‘Joe,’ said Penny. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘He’s here to come to the park with us,’ said Jack excitedly.

  ‘Don’t be a lame brain, Jack,’ said Rosie. ‘How would Dad know we were going to the park unless Mum invited him?’

  Simultaneously Penny and I both reprimanded Rosie for her ‘lame brain’ comment. It was nice being in sync about this even if we were out of sync with everything else.

  ‘I’m here to speak to your mum,’ I said, looking at Penny.

  ‘Actually, now’s not a good time,’ she said quietly, bending down to adjust Jack’s hood.

  ‘But we need to talk,’ I replied. ‘You know . . . about that thing that happened last night.’