Seeing Other People (14 page)

‘A couple of days ago. Penny turned up here with the kids and I was put on babysitting duty while she and Katie disappeared to the kitchen for about three hours. I knew something was up but I never imagined this. I’d always thought you and Penny were solid.’

‘We were. It was me who messed everything up.’

Mitchell raised a knowing eyebrow. ‘So I hear. A twenty-two-year-old blond intern wasn’t it?’

‘Twenty-five,’ I corrected. ‘And she was a brunette but before you ask, no, it wasn’t worth it. Hand on heart, mate, I’ve never regretted anything more in my life. I’ve ruined everything, Mitch, absolutely everything.’

Mitchell nodded sagely. ‘It’s a killer, mate, no two ways about it. And apparently you’ve moved out? Where are you living?’

I laughed. ‘You don’t want to know. Grim doesn’t even begin to cover it.’

Mitchell played with his glass, gently pushing it around the smooth surface of the table with his forefinger. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if it happened to me. For what it’s worth Katie’s told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever get caught doing anything like that she’ll gut me like a fish, pack her bags, and take the kids with her. I believe her too, she can be ruthless when her back’s up. Do you remember that time—’

The sound of keys in the front door. Mitchell checked his watch. ‘Katie’s back early. You need to go, mate.’

‘What do you mean, go? I haven’t even finished my—’

Katie – who had always done angry pretty impressively – came into the room. She looked first at me, then at Mitchell and then she let rip, talking about me as though I wasn’t in the room.

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘He just dropped by.’

‘I told you I didn’t want you seeing him and I meant it!’

Mitchell held up his hands in defence. ‘Babe, there’s no need to be like that! Joe’s just here to say hello.’

Katie threw a look of real disgust in my direction. Finally an acknowledgement. ‘Well I hope he’s said it because either he goes or I do.’

Mitchell tried to stick up for me. ‘Joe’s a mate, he’s god­father to our kids, you can’t just kick him out of our lives like that.’

‘I’m going for a shower. If he’s not out of here by the time I come back down you’ll find out exactly what I can do.’

Katie exited the room, almost sucking all the air out of it as she did so. I finished off my beer and turned to Mitchell.

‘I ought to be getting off.’

‘No, stay,’ said Mitchell with equal parts fear and conviction. ‘I shouldn’t be spoken to like that in my own home.’

I wanted to say that at least he was in his own home but I thought better of it. ‘No, mate. You don’t need the hassle and to be honest I don’t either. I’ll see you around sometime.’

He walked me to the door.

‘I’m sorry about this, mate, I really am. You know how these things are: people take sides even though it isn’t anyone else’s business. She’s decided that we’re on Penny’s side and she won’t listen to anyone who says otherwise.’

I nodded. I’d suspected that this would happen and now it had I felt more than a little sorry for myself. ‘It’s fine, it’s good to know that Penny’s being looked after.’

Just to prove a point, once I was back at the B&B I texted every last one of my and Penny’s mutual friends asking if they were free for a drink. I didn’t get any replies that night but the next day I received one from my friend Simon (of Simon and Laura) who pretty much summed up the situation at hand with a pithy:
Mate, right now you’re so toxic the missus would sooner see me hanging out with Satan at a strip bar than you in a pub. Keep your head down and I’m sure it’ll all
blow over soon. Take it easy, S.
That was the truth. I was toxic. Potentially hazardous waste material that would contaminate the blissfully happy lives of any couple with whom I came into contact. It was official. I had reached rock bottom. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my missed messages until I found Van Halen’s number. It was positively ridiculous how much he and his friends wanted to spend time with me; what did they hope to gain from a night out with a boring hack they met once over six months ago? Hadn’t they got lives to lead? Things to do and achieve? I stared at Van’s number, hoping it might somehow magically disappear thereby saving me from what I was about to do; but it stubbornly refused to do anything even remotely supernatural. I was tired and lonely and I wanted to be back in the world, fully functioning like a real person, but to do that I needed friends, and right now it didn’t look like I had any – or at least any that wanted to be around me.

That night I tapped out the following text:
Hi Van, Joe Clarke here from the Correspondent. Turns out I’m free for a drink tomorrow night, if you’re up for it. Let me know, JC
. Rock bottom? It looked like I had a little further left to go.

14

It was a little after eight as I arrived at the Red Lion, a scruffy, down-at-heel drinking establishment just around the corner from the studio where the Divorced Dads’ Club shoot had happened all that time ago, and having scanned the room for anyone I recognised I ordered a pint and got comfortable at the bar.

I felt ill at ease for a myriad of reasons, not least because I hadn’t the faintest idea what these guys actually expected of me. I hadn’t done anything special by introducing them to each other. It wasn’t as though it was part of some plan of mine to create a miniature support group for divorced dads. All I’d been trying to do was make the best of a very bad job, and yet here I was waiting for a bunch of guys who wanted to personally thank me for bringing them together. It occurred to me as I took the first sip of my pint that there was probably a feature idea in here somewhere – the accidental friendships formed out of media encounters – but I was pretty sure I wasn’t the man to write it. This felt weird. And desperate. The fewer people who knew about my little night out the better.

My relatively optimistic mood had collapsed to such an extent that I’d been in the process of finishing up my pint ready to go home when out of the corner of my eye I saw a tubby guy in a beige mac and jeans heading towards me with a sense of purpose. Reaching me, he grinned and held out his hand: ‘Joe, really good to see you, mate!’

As much as I recognised the man’s face from the day of the shoot I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ I replied. ‘You’ll have to forgive me though. It’s been such a long time since I saw you last. You’re?’

‘Stewart.’

‘And you’re the stay-at-home dad?’

Stewart laughed. ‘I wish. I’m the painter and decorator whose kids live in Thailand.’

‘So no news at all there?’

He shook his head. ‘None.’

Of all of the interviews from that day Stewart’s should have been the one I remembered given how moving it had been. Stewart was a hard-working devoted father of two little girls who just happened to be married to a nightmare of a woman. Having left him three times in a row for men she’d met on the internet, one day she finally left for good to travel around her native country of Thailand and after twelve months and thousands spent on legal fees he had yet to see even a photograph of his kids.

I had to buy the man a drink, it was the only decent thing to do, but he seemed horrified at the thought of me dipping into my own pocket when the whole idea of the evening was to thank me for bringing them together. ‘Van would never forgive me if I let you get a drink in,’ said Stewart. ‘He sent me a text earlier saying that you’re not even allowed to pay for your own crisps.’

Reluctantly I agreed to allow him to get me a pint but just as he had ordered our drinks another man arrived. It was the tall studenty-looking guy. He was wearing a green parka and jeans and looked like he had just stepped out of the union bar – albeit one from 1994.

‘Joe,’ he said, shaking my hand, ‘I couldn’t believe it when Van said you actually wanted to come out with us. He didn’t browbeat you into it, did he? He means well but he can be a bit overbearing when he’s – let’s say – overfocused.’

I laughed. Overfocused was exactly what Van was. ‘He was fine actually, er . . . what was your name again?’

‘Paul, I’m the bloke who was full-time carer for my kids.’

That was it. Paul had been a history teacher. His ex-wife ran a big marketing firm in the city earning far more money than he could ever hope to make. They started a family, a boy and a girl a couple of years older than my own, and he stayed home to look after them but after six years of drifting further and further apart they finally split up. For the sake of continuity they decided that he would stay in the family home and be primary carer just as he always had been.

I asked after his kids and he laughed. ‘Hateful, the older they get the less they seem to like anything that hasn’t got a screen. Sometimes I think I drew the short straw having them live with me.’

Stewart laughed nervously as though he thought I might be secretly recording the conversation and corrected his friend. ‘He’s only joking. Truth is he wouldn’t have it any other way. Isn’t that right, Paul mate?’

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ replied Paul. ‘They can be all right when the mood takes them. I just wish they’d stayed small though. They were really lovely kids when they were small.’

Stewart asked Paul what he was drinking and he pointed out one of the guest ales and was about to start telling some kind of story attached to it – which he prefaced with a grin and the comment, ‘As a man of words you’ll like this’ – when a voice bellowed across the room: ‘Joey, mate! You’re here!’ All of us at the bar (and for that matter the entire pub) turned to see Van, resplendent in a denim shirt, leather trousers and cowboy boots, striding across the floor towards us. He threw his arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks.

‘Sorry I’m late, Joey mate,’ he said with his arm around my shoulder. ‘Bit of a domestic issue: my ex’s washing machine gave up the ghost this morning so I ended up spending all day fixing it.’

I was confused. ‘You fix washing machines? I thought you were in a tribute band?’

Van laughed. ‘You know how it is mate, even a guy like me has to eat!’

‘So how did it happen?’ I asked once we were all assembled around a table. ‘How did you guys move from being a bunch of strangers to the mates you are now?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ said Van Halen. ‘We just clicked at the shoot, and our kids seemed to get on OK, and at the end of the day I think it was Paulie who said we should meet up again, and basically we never looked back. Honestly, Joey, these guys right here . . . they’ve been my rock.’

Paul shrugged. ‘He’s exaggerating. We just helped out where we could.’

Van laughed. ‘Helping out would be picking up some shopping for me. You drove me to chemo twice a week for three months!’

‘Only because you didn’t mind me banging on about Lisa when she announced her engagement,’ replied Paul. ‘I must have bored you senseless with all that whining!’

‘Well if we really are going to have a love-in, how about the way you guys helped me out with everything that’s been happening with my kids? I had debts up to my eyeballs because of all my legal fees and Paul here stumped up a grand to help me pay my rent, just like that, no questions asked, and when I thought I was going to lose my business because I couldn’t afford to fix my van who spent three and a half days sorting it for me at zero cost? Only Van-the-bloody-man, right here! I’d sooner lose a limb than be without these guys!’

It was impossible not to be impressed at the strength of the bond that had formed between these men, especially given that I was the one who had inadvertently brought them together.

‘I’m impressed. You’re practically a support group for single fathers.’

Van raised his pint in the air. ‘Yeah, but one that likes a drink.’

‘And doesn’t mind the odd curry either,’ added Stewart.

‘Oh, and we have been known to visit a racetrack from time to time,’ said Paul finally. ‘But apart from all that, we’re
exactly
like a support group for single dads.’

We stayed at the Red Lion for another pint and then moved on to a nearby curry house that they frequented so often that on entering the proprietor greeted them all by name before showing them to their ‘usual’ table. They ordered without even glancing at the menu and not wanting to feel left out I did too: a lamb pasanda, lime rice and a naan, which much to my relief was met with nods of approval by my dining companions, clearly all experts in North Indian cuisine.

‘So come on Joe,’ said Van, dipping a huge chunk of naan into his rogan josh, ‘what changed your mind? You’re a pretty hard guy to read and correct me if I’m wrong but even I could tell you were a bit reluctant to come out with us. What did we finally do right?’

I looked at Van Halen and grinned. I should have expected this kind of frank questioning four rounds and a curry into the evening. Nice as the guys were – I don’t know what it was exactly but there was
something
about them – I was nowhere near ready to start opening up to them about my troubles. Or at least that’s what I thought as I started conjuring up a story about how I was supposed to be meeting some mates who had cancelled on me at the last minute. Suddenly I found myself putting down my fork and saying: ‘I’ve just split up with my wife.’