Mr. Commitment

by Mike Gayle

  Mum looked at me and said in the manner that only mothers can use convincingly, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “I know, Mum,” I said. “I believe you.”

  Look,” said Charlie, holding up his daughter for Mum and me to see as we walked into the delivery room. “I’m a dad!”

  It had taken ten and a half hours for Vernie to give birth, which according to the doctors was an “easy labor.” Judging by the state of Vernie, who to be frank looked like she’d just run a marathon, the phrase “easy labor” was something of a misnomer.

  Still holding the baby, Charlie pointed to me. “This is your uncle Duffy! He’s the one who’ll be giving you your pocket money.” He pointed to my mum. “This is your gran and anything you want she’ll get it for you!” As he passed the wriggling bundle into Vernie’s outstretched arms he introduced the baby. “And finally everyone, the star of the show . . . this is Little Elvis.”

  “Don’t start, Charlie,” sighed Vernie in a good humored sort of way. “No matter how much I love you, we’re not calling our baby Little Elvis.”

  “But she looks like Elvis,” said Charlie.

  “She’s bald, her head’s a funny shape, and in case it has escaped your attention she is a little girl. Her name’s Phoebe. You know her name’s Phoebe because you helped choose it. If this child grows up thinking that her name is Little Elvis I promise you there will be trouble.”

  Charlie smiled. “Beautiful baby Phoebe.”

  The next half hour was spent playing pass the baby. After Vernie it went to Mum, who then passed her back to Charlie, who then passed her back to Vernie when she started crying, who then quieted her down and then offered her to me.

  “I think I’ll pass this time,” I said, declining as politely as I possibly could. Babies always made me nervous—they were so fragile that I felt they’d fall apart in my hands if I so much as looked at them in the wrong way. Plus, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the Theory of Universal Baby Cuteness that so many people subscribed to. I mean, she looked fairly okay, but not exactly what I’d call attractive. My main problem, however, with babies was that I couldn’t reason with them. It was why I’ve never been all that keen on cats either. It’s the ability to reason that separates us from the animals, and until Phoebe could talk, an animal she would remain. She may well be my niece, I thought, but I’ll wait until I can chat to her like a regular human being before I really bond with her.

  In the end Vernie passed Phoebe to Charlie, who clearly couldn’t get enough of her.

  After five minutes she began crying again. “She’s crying again,” said Charlie needlessly to Vernie. “What shall I do?”

  Vernie smiled at him all sweetness and light and said, “You’re her dad. You do something.”

  Ten minutes and two circuits of the ward corridor later and Charlie handed her back to Vernie in triumph. “Somehow she’s managed to scream herself into a sort of blissful state of peace,” explained Charlie.

  As she lay in Vernie’s arms, her eyes firmly shut and her tiny fingers flinching sporadically as she dreamed of whatever it is that babies dream of, I peered at her closely.

  “She looks like you,” I said to Vernie.

  “I think she looks like Aunt Margaret sucking a sherbet lemon,” said Vernie. “The likeness is uncanny.”

  By the time I got home it was late afternoon. I felt totally drained and was just contemplating a long spell in bed when I heard the electronic beep of the answerphone. I listened to the messages: a sycophantic Greg congratulating me and Dan on our sitcom deal; Dan calling to see if the baby had been born yet; my old temping agency to see if I was interested in a six-week block at an accountancy firm; and one other. I listened to the one other twice. Searched out my address book. Picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Julie, it’s Duffy here. I just got your message. You said you had something to tell me.”

  I heard her taking a deep, momentous breath. “You know that thing that you asked me to do?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I’ll do it.”

  I was stunned. Miracles could happen. The plan was back on. “Excellent!” I cried a little too enthusiastically, and then added calmly but sheepishly, “I couldn’t ask you for another favor, could I?”

  “What is it, Duffy?” sighed Julie impatiently.

  “You couldn’t meet me tomorrow after you’ve been to work, could you? I sort of need a lift.”

  “Where to?”

  “Ikea. A new addition to the plan.”

  She paused. “You want me to ask, don’t you? Well, I’m not going to, because I don’t want to know how that mind of yours works. Some things should remain a mystery.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “I’ll see you round at mine at six-thirty sharp.” She paused again. “Duffy?” she said, a hint of warmth entering into her voice. “I really do hope that everything works out for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I hope so too. Because to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what else I can do.” It was my turn to feel uncomfortable. “Julie?”

  “What now?” she said with mock impatience. “Do you want me to drive you to Marks and Spencer as well?”

  “Not this week,” I returned quickly. “I just wanted to ask: what made you change your mind?”

  “I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but you did—you changed my mind. I thought about everything you’ve said and done recently, and I don’t know why, but I really do believe that you love Mel and that you want to make her happy. All I’ve ever wanted is for her to be happy, and if that’s what you do, then I’m all for it.”

  “Cheers.” I sensed an awkward moment coming over the horizon. “I’d better go, but I’ll see you tomorrow at half six.”

  “For what it’s worth,” she said hesitantly, “I just want you to know that what I said Sunday was wrong. Well, at least I’ve changed my mind. For better or worse I’m back believing in good old-fashioned love.”

  Finally, everything was coming together. There was just one more thing that I had to do. I picked up the phone and made a call.

  Monkeys

  Here’s how my first-ever conversation with my dad went:

  Me: Hello, is that George?

  Him: Yes.

  Me: It’s Ben Duffy here.

  Him: [Pause] Hello. [Hideously long pause] How are you?

  Me: I got your letter a while ago. Do you still want to meet up?

  Him: Yes, of course.

  Me: How about tomorrow?

  Him: Sounds good to me.

  Me: Where shall we meet?

  Him: Wherever you like.

  Me: [Painfully long pause] I dunno.

  Him: [Excruciatingly long pause] I don’t know either.

  Me: [Quite obviously seizing on the first thing that enters my head] London Zoo!

  Him: The zoo? Aren’t you a bit old for that?

  Me: [Brusquely] Okay, you choose.

  Him: No . . . London Zoo sounds fine. Eleven o’clock suit you?

  Me: Fine. [Pause] Okay, then, ’bye.

  Him: ’Bye.

  The zoo. The sodding zoo! I couldn’t believe that I’d just arranged to meet the man who was half responsible for my conception, in a zoo. It had just flashed in my head like a beacon. Later I wondered if deep in my subconscious what I’d wanted more than anything while growing up was to be taken to the zoo by my dad. Well, here I was some two decades later and finally my dream was coming true.

  I had made the decision to call him as I’d sat in the hospital waiting room with Mum and she’d told me how she’d contacted him for my sake. I didn’t like the thought of her feeling responsible for something that had nothing to do with her. I already knew that I wasn’t my dad. I already knew that unlike him I could do the commitment thing. But I felt that for Mum’s sake, for my sake and for the sake of everyone whose dad just waltzed off and left them when they were kids, I had to do this one thing. And anyway, the para
llels between my own life and that of Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi were so uncanny that I couldn’t resist. Was I, like Luke, going to discover that my dad was someone powerful like Darth Vader, or was he just going to be some old rent-a-dad, with regulation paunch, bald patch and extended nasal hair? When I was a kid I used to tell people that my dad was in the SAS and that was why he was never around. But then Mike Bailey got a book out from the local library on the SAS that said that they weren’t even allowed to tell close family members they were in the crack army battalion, which pretty much blew my cover.

  The next day I got up early and put on the suit that I’d worn to Meena’s wedding. It was a bit crumpled but I wore it anyway. While I didn’t really give a toss one way or another what my dad thought of me, I couldn’t help but feel a little insecure. Something in me didn’t want him to be disappointed when he saw me. I even put on a tie. The funny thing was, as I approached the entrance to the zoo dead-on eleven o’clock I spotted him a mile off because he was wearing a suit and tie too. So there we were. Two grown men in suits and ties going to the zoo.

  “Hello,” I said, giving him a short and very awkward wave. “Are you George?”

  “Ben,” he replied, offering me his hand. “Good to meet you.”

  I thought about correcting the “Ben” thing but left it. He squeezed my hand very firmly in a handshake that seemed to last forever. He was shorter than I expected. Both Vernie and I were quite tall, and as my mum wasn’t, I’d always assumed that we’d got it from my dad. It felt odd discovering that we’d inherited our height from one of our less immediate ancestors. He had a full head of gray hair (so I couldn’t blame my receding hairline on him either) and a kind of long, drawn-out face that along with his thick eyebrows and mustache gave him the appearance of an aging TV private detective. The only thing we had in common was our eyes. Almond shaped, and dark brown. “Shall we go in?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

  He paid for the two of us at the kiosk near the entrance and we pushed through the turnstile into the zoo. As it was a damp Thursday in October and school half terms had not yet started, the zoo wasn’t exactly crawling with activity. There were a few preschool kids with their mums dotted about the place, and that was it. Leading the way, George decided that we ought to go and visit the lions first. Which is exactly what we did.

  It was the strangest thing, because we didn’t talk about the missing years, his life or mine; instead animals dominated the conversation. Never have two people who so obviously know bugger all about the animal kingdom found so much to say about it. We read plaque after plaque, informed each other of nature documentaries we had seen in the past and dredged up all manner of ridiculous animal facts (“No, I didn’t know that whales give birth to live young. But did you know that the kangaroo has a forked penis?”). After the lions, we visited the reptile house, the penguins in the pool, watched the llamas, the elephants, in fact everything there was to see.

  We spent a particularly long time in the ape house, for my benefit. I was running out of stuff to say and the orangutans were so entertaining that we used them as a talking point for at least half an hour. The zookeepers had given the orangutans clothes to play with. One particular orangutan, who had to have the saddest, most mournful face in the primate world, was sitting on the ground next to a tree, with a lady’s long raincoat over his head. His body was huddled up and his long hairy arms were wrapped around his back as if he were giving himself a hug. We watched him for ages as he began doing forward and backward rolls for no reason at all. If Mel had been here she would’ve wanted to cry.

  After three hours of wandering around, we decided to take a break for lunch. Queuing up in the restaurant, George told me that he’d treat me to lunch, which struck me as very funny—I’d worked out on my way to the zoo that at the very least he probably owed me a few thousand pounds in backdated birthday presents alone. He chose a ham baguette wrapped in cellophane and I had a plate of French fries with three sachets of tomato sauce.

  “Do you want a coffee?” he asked as we reached the drinks dispensers.

  “I don’t really do hot drinks,” I told him.

  “Me neither,” he said, pulling a face. “I hate things that are too hot to sip.”

  As the sun had come out briefly, we sat at the tables outside the zoo’s restaurant to eat, even though the plastic chairs were damp. As we chewed in silence, I could see how difficult this was for him, but it was hard for me too. There was this massive thing between us—a conversation that we both knew we had to have, but that neither of us particularly wanted to begin.

  I was just about to offer up another animal fact (“Did you know that bulls see in black and white?”) when George suddenly put down his half-eaten baguette. “I was just wondering what made you change your mind?”

  This is it. This is The Talk.

  “About seeing you?” I asked, playing for time. He nodded. I thought deeply about his question and avoided eye contact while I spoke. “I’ve just sorted out my life in a way I never thought possible. I’ve spent a long time avoiding stuff that I used to be scared of, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: nothing is ever as scary as you think it will be.”

  George laughed, a kind of big baritone laugh that made me envious, given that my voice was nowhere near as deep. “I think it was Mark Twain who said, ‘I am an old man and have known many fears. Most of which have never happened.’ ”

  “I think I prefer my version,” I said. “It has a sort of awkward charm about it.”

  “I prefer yours too,” he replied.

  There was a big silence. “I used to hate you. In fact I spent most of my life hating you. You made my life difficult for no good reason as far as I can see.”

  “I deserve that,” he said. “There’s no good excuse for what I did. You’re right I made your mother’s life a mess and made things hard for you and your sister.” He paused. “You said ‘used to hate.’ Does that mean that you don’t hate me now?”

  I swallowed hard. “I think I’ve just come round to the idea that it’s pointless hating you. When I was at school, most of my mates had absentee dads of some description. It was weird. Like a whole generation of men had held some sort of secret ballot and decided universally to bugger off pronto. They were all at it. Like the monkeys.”

  “Monkeys?”

  “Yeah,” I said and then proceeded to tell him Dan’s dead monkey joke. “You were just doing the dead monkey like everybody else, which is no surprise given that the difference between monkey DNA and human DNA is as little as one percent.” This startling statistic forced me to take a moment of self-reflection: Where are all these animal facts coming from? “You weren’t necessarily a bad person,” I continued. “Just weak-willed.” I looked up at George for the first time. He was watching me intently.

  “You know I’m sorry, don’t you?” he said. “It’s useless apologizing—it’s only words after all—but I mean it. I’ve missed your growing up and Vernie’s growing up and it’s stuff that I’ll never get back. I tried not to think about you at all when I first left, which was difficult, but I knew your mum would give you everything you needed. Eventually it got easier and easier to forget that you existed. It was almost like you were a dream, or you were somebody else’s life.”

  Over the next half an hour we tried to cram in as much as we could about the last twenty-eight years. I told him about Vernie and the baby, my stand-up career so far, and even a bit about me and Mel and the baby (although I didn’t go into too much detail).

  In return George told me about his life. He’d remarried and divorced, never had any more kids and had spent his life in shoe sales. Now that he was retired he spent most of his time in the garden of his house in Enfield. He seemed moderately happy with his lot, which annoyed me slightly, so I made up a stack of lies about my mum having won a modest sum on the National Lottery and her having a retired suitor who was forever taking her on exotic holidays to the Caribb
ean. Although I no longer hated George, there was no way that I didn’t love my mum a billion times more than anything I’d ever feel for him.

  “Well, I’m glad she’s happy,” was all he managed to say.

  “She is,” I replied. “Very.”

  We decided to call it a day when it started to rain. As we headed for the exit George talked about how this hadn’t been as scary as he thought it would be and so we should do it again. However, I think he knew as well as I did that we were never really going to. We’d both done the thing that we’d been waiting a lifetime to do, and now we’d crossed it off our lists there wasn’t a lot more to say other than goodbye.

  “Goodbye, then.” I offered George my hand.

  “It’s been good to see you,” he said, shaking it firmly. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a fine young man.”

  “Cheers,” I replied. I don’t think he expected me to reciprocate his compliment, but if he did he was sadly mistaken. His statement did, however, call for something more substantial than “Cheers,” so I found myself saying, “I’ve got your eyes.”

  “I know,” he said, taken aback.

  “Mel thinks my eyes are the reason she fell in love with me,” I said quietly. “I’ll let her know that they’re just like yours.”

  He smiled gently. “Meet up soon, then?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”

  Every man has a poem in his heart

  “Are you sure it goes in there?”

  I looked at Julie exasperatedly.

  “Maybe you’ve got it upside down or something? Have you tried wobbling that funny-looking thing?”