Seeing Other People (29 page)

Conscious that my disheartened disposition was taking a distinct turn for the worse I made my excuses to Graham and escaped to the tills. On the way home I planned out the day ahead in a bid to distract myself. Step one would be making a show-stopping breakfast with the bacon, eggs and orange juice I’d just bought, step two would involve tackling some of the domestic tasks I’d been ignoring – there were rooms to tidy, clothes to be ironed and wardrobes in need of repair – and then, finally, after lunch, step three: head into town and catch up on any one of the half-dozen films I’d been meaning to see at some point but never found the time to get round to. As empty Saturdays without my kids went, it could have been a lot worse but then my phone rang. It was Rosie.

‘Dad, you need to come quick,’ she said. ‘Mum and Scott have had a massive argument and he’s gone and now she won’t stop crying. I don’t know what to do, Dad, I don’t know what to do.’

The panic in her voice tore at my heartstrings. ‘You don’t need to do anything other than wait for me to arrive, OK?’ I told her as I calculated the logistics of getting over to Penny’s in the shortest time possible. ‘I’ll look after you, and I’ll look after Mum too. Don’t worry about a thing: Dad’s coming and he’ll sort everything out.’

When I arrived at the house the kids opened the door and raced at me with such force that they nearly knocked me off my feet. The relief they felt now I was there was as palpable as the guilt I felt that they’d had to deal with this problem without me for a single moment. I was their dad, I was supposed to stop bad things happening in their lives. If I couldn’t do that then what use was I?

‘Mum’s upstairs,’ said Rosie with tears in her eyes. ‘She just won’t stop crying and I didn’t know what to do. Did I do the right thing calling you?’ She started to cry and I held her to me tightly. ‘Of course you did,’ I said, stroking her hair. ‘Mum’s going to be fine. Just tell me what happened.’

‘Well, she was on the phone to Scott and they were talking for a while and I could hear her getting more and more upset and then the next thing I knew she’d gone upstairs and slammed the door. I knocked and she told me to go away but I could hear that she was crying and that’s when I called you.’

I kissed Rosie’s head. ‘You did exactly the right thing. Now what I need you to do is take Jack and go and watch some TV while I talk to Mum. Help yourself to some biscuits and make yourself a nice drink. Just relax, everything’s going to be fine.’

The kids did as I asked and once they were safely ensconced in front of the TV I went upstairs and knocked on the bedroom door. There was no reply but I could hear Penny crying and so I went in. She was curled on top of the covers sobbing uncontrollably. It was heart-breaking. She was always so strong, so vital, so unwilling to let life get her down. Whatever the source of her argument with Scott, it was irrelevant. Penny would never have been in this state if it hadn’t been for me. If I’d stayed away from Bella. If I’d never had an affair. If I’d just been satisfied with what I’d got instead of scrabbling around for something more. They say you get what you deserve but Penny didn’t deserve any of this. I, on the other hand, deserved to be shot.

I asked her what was wrong, what had happened. She couldn’t seem to or perhaps didn’t want to tell me and I couldn’t blame her. It was me who’d made her so vulnerable. My affair had made her feel like a failure, as a wife and subsequently as a parent, and this thing with Scott – whatever it was – had reopened wounds that I had inflicted.

Tucking her into bed I quietly closed the bedroom door and explained to the kids that Mummy was fine but was having a really bad day and that the best thing they could do would be to spend the night with Penny’s mum and stepdad. Although Jack was excited at the prospect of seeing his grandparents Rosie was reluctant to leave her mother’s side, almost seeing it as an act of betrayal. ‘I don’t want her to think we don’t care,’ she explained. ‘I don’t want her to wake up and wonder where we’ve gone.’ I reassured Rosie all I could. ‘She’s your mum, sweetheart, she knows you love her. But right now, she needs a rest. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone you love is give them the space they need to get well again.’

I helped the kids pack their overnight bags into which they piled all of life’s essentials. For Jack it was his latest Lego set, a picture book about space travel and the Chinese superhero action figure I’d bought him from Chinatown; for Rosie it was a couple of books, her iPod and a small green furry frog that had been her bedtime companion from the day she was born. It was very worn and ragged now and though Penny washed it often it still smelled musty. Once a few years earlier having noticed the state of it I offered to buy her a new one. She didn’t even reply, just looked at me askance as though she couldn’t believe I would even entertain the question. I picked up the frog from the bed and stroked its fur and Rosie snatched it from my hand and put it back in her case. She might have had to call me to sort out the situation in which we found ourselves but that didn’t mean she didn’t blame me for it on some level.

The afternoon was all but over by the time I returned from dropping the kids with Penny’s mum and stepdad. I let myself into the house with the spare keys I’d taken from the kitchen drawer near the back door where they’d always lived. I was about to head upstairs to check on Penny when I heard a noise from the living room and as I poked my head around the door I saw that she was sitting, legs curled up, on the sofa underneath a throw.

She looked up. Her eyes were red and swollen but at least she’d stopped crying. ‘I’m so sorry you had to see me like this . . . and the kids too. You must think I’m the worst mother in the world.’

‘I’d never think that. You just had a bad day, that’s all. We’ve all had those.’

‘Are the kids all right? What did Mum and Tony say?’

‘The kids are fine,’ I replied. ‘Jack was straight in the garden with Tony and when I left Rosie and your mum were playing backgammon.’

Penny looked puzzled. ‘Backgammon? Since when has Rosie had any interest in playing that?’

‘By my reckoning since about an hour ago. You know what your mum’s like, she can’t stand Rosie listening to her iPod or as she calls it the “i-music-thingy”. She likes to get the kids doing old timey stuff.’

Penny smiled. ‘But they’re OK?’

‘They’re fine. They told me to give you this.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sheet of A4 folded into the shape of a card. On the front Rosie had drawn a bunch of tulips and underneath in Jack’s unmistakable scrawl were the words
Mummy’s favourite flowers
. Inside it read: Sorry you’re not feeling well, get better soon, love and squeezes, Rosie and Jack. Rosie had drawn three neat crosses after her name but Jack being Jack had covered the bottom of the card and the entire back of it with wonky kisses.

As a rule I wouldn’t say I’m an overemotional man but even the most hastily thrown together of my kids’ art projects brought a lump to my throat. All it took was some glued-on pasta, a scattering of glitter and some scribbled kisses and I was complete mush in their hands. It was something about the unfettered honesty of their intention that when combined with the rudimentary nature of the card’s construction got me every time.

Penny took the card from me and sobbed as she read it.

‘That’s so beautiful. They’re such good kids. They don’t deserve any of this. I have to call and let them know how much I love them.’

‘You can,’ I replied. ‘But not right now. I told them I’d call them tonight and you’d call them first thing in the morning and they were fine with that. And as for your folks, I think they knew something was going on but knew better than to ask.’

Penny wiped her eyes and moved to get up. ‘I have to let them know I’m OK. They’ll worry otherwise.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I insisted. ‘You’ve been through a lot. All you need to do right now is sit down and rest. I’ll call in a minute if you want and tell them whatever you want me to.’

Penny nodded and sat back down. ‘Maybe you’re right. I don’t think I could face their questions right now.’

I sat down on the armchair opposite. ‘Is that your way of saying that I shouldn’t ask what happened? Because I won’t if you don’t want me to.’

‘There’s not much to say really. Scott finished with me.’

‘He did what? Why would he do that? I thought he was mad about you.’

Penny shrugged. ‘The why doesn’t matter. It’s done and it can’t be undone.’

The more selfish part of me wanted to agree and spend the rest of the evening conducting a thorough character assassination of Scott but I knew I couldn’t destroy her hopes.

‘It’s only a stupid fight, just give him a night to come to his senses and he’ll be back.’

Penny smiled sadly. ‘Dating advice from my husband . . . I don’t think this day could get any more weird. This time last year I could never have imagined we’d be here, could you?’

I couldn’t look at her. The guilt was too much. ‘I’m sorry, Penny. I’m so sorry.’

Penny reached out and took my hand.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

Dropping around at Penny’s became a sort of habit after that. I’d come home from work, make a quick tea and then pop over for an hour or two on the pretext of checking in with the kids. And while it didn’t take a genius to work out that I was unconsciously pinning all my hopes for a happy future on these occasions, at the same time I was just glad to be a comfort to her.

A few nights into this new pattern I turned up at the house with a Chinese takeaway in response to a throwaway comment of Penny’s about how desperate she was for a chicken chow mein. It seemed like a no-brainer: purchase takeaway, take said food to Penny, make her happy and while she was getting the plates out tell her that I still loved her and wanted a chance to make things right.

As steam rose up into the evening air from the takeaway carrier bag I rang the doorbell with my free hand and prepared to declare my love in the most convincing way I could to the only woman in the world who mattered to me. After a moment or two of tortured waiting I saw movement through the stained glass panel of the door followed by the fumbling of locks as the door opened to reveal Scott.

I have to admit I hadn’t seen it coming at all.

‘What are you doing here?’ I spluttered.

‘I think this is one that Penny needs to explain,’ he replied.

Penny came to the door as Scott slipped back inside the house. She looked nervous and embarrassed. ‘Joe, I’m sorry, I . . . well Scott dropped by, and . . .’

‘You’re back together aren’t you?’

Penny nodded and I put the takeaway down on the doorstep. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘dinner’s on me.’ I started down the path with Penny calling after me. Finally, she ran out of the house and up the street after me in her bare feet.

‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way but it’s literally only just happened,’ she said, grabbing hold of my arm. ‘I was putting the kids to bed and next thing I knew Scott was on the doorstep.’

‘But you told me it was over.’

‘I thought it was.’

‘So what’s changed?’

Her voice was barely above a whisper: ‘He told me he loved me.’

‘And do you love him?’

Penny didn’t reply, but she didn’t have to. The pity in her eyes directed towards me pretty much said it all.

As I walked home that night I fully expected to see Fiona. Surely if there was ever a moment for my mind to manifest her it was now. But there was nothing. Not on the way home, that sleepless night or at any point over the week that followed. Even the arrival of my decree nisi – which was in effect little more than an official-looking sheet of A4 paper with various sentences amended and dated for the specifics of my and Penny’s circumstances – didn’t cause a relapse. After I read it through there were no talking dead exes, no visions of me at death’s door or anything even vaguely supernatural. Just the very real sense that my life was changing beyond all recognition:

The petitioner: Penny Elizabeth Clarke has sufficiently proved the contents of the petition herein and is entitled to a decree of divorce, the marriage having irretrievably broken down, the facts found proved being the Respondent’s adultery.

I read that final word several times: adultery. It didn’t seem to matter any more that I couldn’t remember my night with Bella taking place, in fact somehow it seemed more fitting given how much I still loved Penny, as though it hadn’t happened at all. Maybe that was what my unconscious mind had been trying to tell me through ‘Fiona’ all along: to let go, to move on, because that was exactly what Penny was doing. It still hurt though, it hurt like nothing else on earth. In fact I’m not sure that I would’ve got through the weeks that followed its arrival had it not been for the Divorced Dads’ Club proving the truth of the maxim that the best way to forget your own problems is to help someone else with theirs.

30

It started with Van.

It was the end of an unusually quiet night out in the Red Lion. With the kids still very much on my mind I’d barely said a word all evening which wouldn’t have been so bad but Van had also been oddly quiet; seeing as he was usually the life and soul of our get-togethers, this succeeded in putting a real dampener on the proceedings.