Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  I’d just decided to go and ask the nurses what was going on when the consultant’s door opened and out came Van grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

  ‘All clear,’ said Van, wrapping his arms around Stewart and picking him up as though he weighed nothing. ‘Turns out the lump was just a blocked skin pore.’

  ‘So you’re fine?’ I asked. ‘Completely fine?’

  ‘Not a trace of anything dodgy in any of my tests. The consultant was so chuffed that he called in about half a dozen students to come and take a look at my results! That’s why it took so long.’

  Paul patted Van on the back. ‘We should go and celebrate. News like this always tastes better with a pint.’

  ‘Mate, I’d love to,’ said Van. ‘But I can’t right now.’

  Paul looked confused. It wasn’t like Van to turn down a pint when one was offered. ‘How come? Where are you going?’

  ‘Where do you think? I’m off to see my kids. Just me, them and all the chocolate chip ice cream they can eat.’

  Once we’d had our celebration with Van a couple of days later, Paul revealed a problem he’d been wrestling with alone, not wanting to take the attention away from Van and all he had been going through. Paul’s ex was getting married. His kids wanted to go and he didn’t but no matter how many different alternatives his ex came up with the kids had made it clear that they were only going if Paul went too and so this was the compromise: Paul would go but only if he could bring three complete strangers with him. Paul’s ex told him that he could bring along a troupe of performing seals if he liked as long as the kids came and he warned her that although he probably wouldn’t be doing that one of the guys was a tall, bald New Zealander called Van Halen and there was a very good chance that if he got drunk he could cause some real fireworks. Later that day Paul pitched the idea to us over a series of group texts:

  Paul: Who wants to come to my ex’s wedding?

  Me, Van and Stewart: Not me.

  Paul: There’ll be free beer.

  Van: OK.

  Me and Stewart: Still no.

  Paul: I wouldn’t ask but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a tough day.

  Me: In that case count me in.

  Stewart: I’ll be there.

  Van: Dude, I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys, you had me at free beer!

  It was just after midday as Stewart and Van and I arrived at the Royal Metropolitan in Knightsbridge. All three of us looked up at the plush, marble-clad building in front of us.

  ‘Paul’s ex-missus and her fiancé aren’t short of a few bob are they?’ commented Stewart, straightening his tie self-consciously.

  ‘You’re not wrong there, mate,’ replied Van, who although he was wearing a second-hand dinner jacket matched with a white vest top, jeans and cowboy boots couldn’t have been any more blissfully unaware of the looks he was attracting. ‘She must have really wound up Paulie for him to want to give up this kind of lifestyle. She’s obviously loaded.’

  I shrugged, and thought back to my Father’s Day interview with Paul all that time ago. ‘Somewhere along the way,’ he’d said, ‘we just stopped loving each other and by the time we realised there just wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.’

  We arrived late but the ushers were still busy getting everyone to sit down in time for the bride’s arrival. We tried to find somewhere to sit at the back of the room but then one of the ushers asked me who I was, checked my name against the list in his hands and then – with the whole room looking on – promptly marched us to a row of chairs at the front of the room where Paul was sitting with his kids.

  ‘Glad you could make it,’ said Paul in a stage whisper.

  Once we’d all settled down I nudged Paul and gestured to the tall, fair-haired guy chatting at the front of the room. He looked nervous and excited.

  ‘Is that the groom?’

  Paul nodded.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘That’s the most galling thing about him: he’s actually OK.’

  I stared hard at the groom and in spite of myself an image of Scott popped into my head. Would that be him one day in a room packed with friends and family waiting for Penny to walk up the aisle and promise to love and adore him for the rest of their lives? I couldn’t imagine any situation that would make me sit through that no matter what.

  I leaned into Paul. ‘You know, if you want to slip out before she gets here no one will think any the worse of you. I’m happy to look after the kids until it’s all over.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘It’s fine, really. This is something I need to do, not just for the kids but for me too.’

  Later that night, after the food and the speeches had finished, Paul and I stood at the bar watching the bride and groom take to the floor for the first dance of the evening, Paul turned away and took a sip of his beer.

  ‘Are you all right mate?’

  ‘I’m fine, or I will be. It’s just been a weird day and I don’t quite know what I feel. They say that divorce is toughest on the kids, and it’s true, it’s really hard for them, but I’ll tell you what, it’s not easy on the parents either, not easy at all.’

  A few weeks later, I was finishing off some work at home when I got a call from Stewart. ‘It’s the kids,’ said Stewart, barely able to get his words out. ‘I’ve just heard from my solicitor: my kids are coming home!’

  For as long as I’d known Stewart he’d been trying to get his kids back from his ex-wife in Thailand without success. The battle to bring them home had taken its toll, financially and emotionally. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was feeling.

  According to Stewart the news had come completely out of the blue. He’d got in from work to find an email from his ex saying she wanted to talk. Stewart had called the number she had given him straight away and she told him that the kids were homesick for the UK and she would send them back to him if he’d pay for the flights. We all told him to be careful in case she was just after his money but he wouldn’t listen. For him this was too good an opportunity for him not to hope to with all his strength that it was true. He’d told her he’d find the money and had so far managed to scrape together all but five hundred quid of it from family and friends.

  I didn’t wait for him to ask. Broke as I was, this was a cause I could really get behind.

  ‘Give me your bank details and I’ll transfer it now.’

  The following evening Stewart called to say he’d bought the tickets but added that there was one last favour he needed from me.

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I could do with a bit of company while I wait to pick them up,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked Van and Paul already but they’re both working. I don’t suppose you could come with me could you?’

  ‘I’d be honoured,’ I replied. ‘Leave it with me and I’ll sort it out.’

  Three days later I found myself in my car with Stewart in the passenger seat on our way to Heathrow’s Terminal Four. I still wasn’t quite sure how I’d been invited to witness the single most important day of his life but I was glad he wasn’t doing this alone.

  Stewart was a bag of nerves as we waited in the arrivals lounge. He’d bought a coffee and let it go cold and then another and then let that go cold too. He’d pace the floor underneath the screen showing flight arrivals only stopping to check that he’d got the correct flight number even though I guessed he knew it off by heart. Finally however the news came through that he had been waiting for: his kids’ plane had landed.

  ‘What do you think I should say to them first?’ asked Stewart as we waited at the gate. ‘I haven’t seen them for so long, I want it to be right.’

  ‘It will be,’ I replied. ‘You’re their dad and throughout all this time you’ve never given up trying to see them. Your actions have said more than any words ever could. You just enjoy this moment and know that they’re going to be absolutely mad about you no matter what.’

  As the first flurry of passengers from Bangkok began to filter thr
ough the sliding doors even I felt my heart beat that little bit faster but not even this could prepare me for the lurch I felt in my chest the moment Stewart locked eyes on his kids. The kids and their chaperone didn’t really know what had hit them when this chubby, dishevelled-looking bloke dressed in baggy jeans and a coat that was several sizes too big for him suddenly appeared in their line of vision with his arms outstretched ready to scoop them up and for a moment I feared that they might run away or, worse still, cry. But then the tallest of the two, a little girl no more than eight or nine at best, opened up her arms and hugged him and then her brother, who must have been around Jack’s age, ran forwards and hugged Stewart too. As life-affirming moments went I doubted that they got any better than this: hope fulfilled, a fractured family reunited, a hole in the heart sewn up for good.

  Wiping away tears with the back of his hand while dozens of passengers looked on wondering at the story behind this emotional reunion, Stewart called me over.

  ‘Joe, I want you to meet Thomas and Vicky: my kids. Kids, this is Joe, one of my best mates.’

  As I said hello I couldn’t help but think back to the day at the studio when I’d first met Stewart. Who would’ve believed that all this time later Stewart and I would be not just acquaintances, but good friends? The older I got the more unpredictable life seemed to become. There was never any telling what might happen from day to day let alone from minute to minute. There was always something unexpected lurking around the corner.

  That night I reached home long after it had gone dark. I opened the mail as I kicked off my shoes. A gas bill, a dentist’s appointment card, two bank statements, the new issue of Men’s Health and then, finally, my decree absolute. I sat down heavily on the bottom of the stairs. It was official: I was no longer married to Penny and in that instant I missed her more than ever.

  31

  It was early evening and the last embers of April sun were shining through the kitchen window casting shadows across the cupboards. I was in the middle of making a bowl of pasta when the phone rang. I’d been waiting for a call from Penny all day. Today was the single most important day of our daughter’s life so far: today was the day she would find out which secondary school she would go to in September.

  Since the previous September this had practically been the sole topic of conversation amongst parents at the school gates. Some had already made up their minds to move into the right catchment areas or out of London altogether, others were cashing in nest eggs and sending their kids to private schools and still others – like Penny and me – had chosen to simply cross our fingers and hope for the best.

  Much like every other parent in the borough of Lewisham we wanted Rosie to go to Watermill Lane Comprehensive, a school that was so oversubscribed it had a waiting list to get on to its waiting list. Watermill Lane’s Ofsted report was outstanding, its pupils regularly attained the kind of exam results any elite private school would be proud of and it had an incredible reputation not only for sport but also the arts. Parents had been known to rent houses in the catchment area months in advance for exorbitant fees and move their whole families there just to secure a place and others who had lied or cheated their way to the front of the queue were regularly caught out and splashed across the front of the local free paper. Back in October when Penny and I had filled in the online application form we’d convinced ourselves that even though we lived three miles away from the school, just outside last year’s catchment, it was madness to up sticks and sell just to get a much more expensive house a mere 0.6 miles closer to the school and so we reasoned – or rather, hoped – that somehow we’d be OK. And with everything that had happened over the past few months, it was fair to say that we had taken our eye off that particular ball. But now that the day was here when we’d finally find out Rosie’s fate it was a lot harder to be quite so easy-going, especially since West Gate Community College, the undersubscribed, fresh-out-of-special-measures secondary school was just minutes down the road.

  Unfortunately however the call wasn’t from Penny but Van trying to sell me on the virtues of going out with his sister Makayla, who had just arrived in London fresh from Auckland.

  ‘She’s amazing, mate! Gorgeous face, great personality and legs to die for!’

  ‘Let me stop you right there, Van,’ I protested before the conversation could get any more uncomfortable. ‘You do realise this is your sister you’re talking about?’

  ‘Of course I do, but that doesn’t stop her from being hot does it? Obviously she’s not hot to me. To me she’s still the little squirt who used to sneak into my room and nick my AC/DC tapes but take it from me, to regular guys who aren’t related to her she is definitely one hot chick! I’ll send you a photo if you don’t believe me.’

  The line went silent and I winced with embarrassment as I pictured Van talking his sister into the indignity of posing for a photograph: ‘Don’t worry, it’s for a mate so he can see if you’re all right-looking,’ I could imagine him saying. ‘I won’t use a flash and I’ll make sure to get your best side!’

  My phone pinged just at the moment the boiling pot of pasta spat scorching water in the direction of my shirt. I lowered the heat under the pan then returned my attention to the phone as, with eyes half closed, I opened the picture attachment. The pretty brunette in the picture looked nothing at all like the blond-wigged Van in drag I’d imagined. She had a kind face, deep green eyes and looked exactly like the sort of woman I could fall for given the right circumstances. It was hard to believe that Van had been in the same room as this women let alone the same womb. There had to be something more to it. I called him back.

  ‘And this is actually your sister?’

  ‘Ha! Same mother, same father. I’m guessing she got a better pick from the gene pool though! Anyway, I told you she was hot and it looks like you think so too so let’s do this. She’s single, she’s here for a month and I’ve talked you up a storm. All you need to do is say the word, and – pre-booked sightseeing trips notwithstanding – I’ll sort out a date.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m really touched,’ I said, and I meant it. I couldn’t imagine any of my friends outside the Divorced Dads’ Club taking this much of an interest in my life. ‘But I’m just not in the right place at the moment.’

  ‘And you never will be if you don’t get out of the rut you’re stuck in,’ said Van. ‘I know it’s hard to hear but it’s time to move on, mate. If me and the guys can do it then so can you.’

  It had been over a month since I’d received my decree absolute and while all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and die Van had been determined to keep me in the land of the living to the extent that in this past week alone I had been to one of his gigs, out bowling with him and even to the cinema. ‘You’ve got to keep putting yourself out there,’ he’d told me as we’d left the cinema having sat though ninety minutes of a by-numbers action movie, ‘otherwise you’ll shrivel up and die.’

  Telling Van I’d get back to him I returned to my meal preparations. I stuck a fork in the pasta and took a bite of a twirl. It was overcooked and waterlogged but nevertheless I drained the pan, tipped on the half-bottle of pasta sauce I’d found in the fridge and grated most of a block of cheese over it. I dumped the whole lot unceremoniously on to a plate and then my phone rang again. This time it was Penny. There was only one question on my mind.

  ‘Did she get in? Did she get Watermill Lane?’

  ‘No,’ said Penny. ‘They want to send her to West Gate.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ I said and then I scraped the contents of my plate into a bin bag on the floor and grabbed my coat.

  West Gate Community College. Even hearing the name was enough to send a shiver down my spine. Sometimes if I was off work I’d see kids in what passed for West Gate’s school uniform hanging out by the station. More often than not however it was the smell of weed I noticed before I saw them. At first I thought I was imagining it but then one day when they were obviously feeling extra conf
ident I spotted one of them lighting up a joint as openly as if it were a cigarette. Then of course there was the local newspaper, the Lewisham Gazette, which seemed to alternate articles about muggings with stories about school pupils raising money for local charities. Without fail the muggings involved kids from West Gate and the stories about philanthropy featured kids from Watermill Lane. As liberal as my politics were and as disadvantaged as I knew some of the kids at West Gate to be, I knew that there was no way any child of mine was ever going to go to West Gate Community College. This wasn’t just a middle-class parents’ nightmare. It was every parent’s nightmare.

  ‘We have to appeal,’ I told Penny as we sat in the kitchen while the kids watched TV.

  ‘On what grounds?’ she asked. ‘Rosie doesn’t have any special needs, we’re well outside the catchment area and as much as I’d love for things not being fair to be considered a legitimate argument I don’t think that will cut it.’

  ‘So you’re just going to give up?’

  ‘I don’t know what else there is we can do, Joe. We haven’t got the money to go private so other than moving out of the area altogether – and who knows how long that will take let alone whether we’ll even get into a school that we like somewhere else – I don’t see a way out of this.’ A tear slid down her cheek. Instinctively I leaned across the table and put my hands on hers. ‘Whatever it takes to make this right we’ll do it, OK?’

  Penny nodded and withdrew her hands guiltily. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I just wish it wasn’t like this. I wish something would go right for a change. I mean how could they even think it was acceptable to send our little baby to that horrible place?’

  Penny left the room in search of a tissue leaving me to think not just about the problem at hand but also my relationship with Penny. Even for the sake of our daughter it was hard being around her knowing that she was with someone else. Every time she got upset I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her and yet I knew I couldn’t trust myself to be so close to her and not do or say something that would drive an even bigger wedge between us than the one that already existed. This was one of the key things that films, books and TV fail to tell you about life after the end of a marriage: that the job of being a parent is no respecter of personal circumstances. It doesn’t give a toss if as an ex-couple you’re in one of those phases when you’re not speaking to each other; it is frankly indifferent to how uncomfortable you might find the process of having to sit down across from each other while your kid’s teacher informs you of how well your child is doing at finger-painting and it certainly doesn’t give a crap if your ego’s still bruised following the news that your other half has found someone new. Being a parent wants what it wants, it needs what it needs and right now, in the middle of the chaos of our fractured family life, it needed us to be the best parents we could be.