Man and Wife (7 page)

‘He would be. If only he could stay in his seat for an entire lesson.’

‘He goes walkabout,’ Gina said, nervously biting her thumbnail, and for a second it was as if she had been brought here because of her own misbehaviour. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? He just wanders around the class. Chatting to other children. Chatting away while they are trying to do their work.’ She looked at me. ‘We’ve been here before. More than once.’

‘May I ask you a personal question?’ Miss Wilkins said. She may have had a different kind of haircut, but she still sounded like every teacher I ever knew.

‘Of course,’ said Gina.

A beat.

‘Was it a very stressful divorce?’

‘Aren’t they all?’ I said.

We followed Miss Wilkins down the corridor. There was a small square pane of glass in the thick slab of every classroom door. Like the spyhole in a prison cell. The albino head of Miss Wilkins bobbed in front of one of them for a moment and then she stood back, smiling grimly, raising an index finger to her lips. Gina and I peered through the window into our son’s classroom.

I spotted him immediately. Even surrounded by thirty other six- and seven-year-olds, some of them with the same shaggy
mop top, all of them in the same green sweater that passed for a uniform in these parts, I couldn’t miss him.

Pat was in the middle of the class, bent over a drawing, just like all the other children. And I thought about how shiny his hair always looked, like something from a conditioner commercial, even when it needed what my mum would call a good old wash.

On the blackboard the teacher had sketched a cartoon of planet earth, a chalky globe lost in all that black space, the blurry lines of the continents just about recognisable. She was writing something above it.
Our World
, it said.

The children were all drawing intently. Even Pat. And for a moment I could kid myself that everything was all right. There was something moving about the scene. Because of course these inner-city children came from every ethnic group on the planet. But the trouble was the drawing my son was bent over belonged to someone else. He was helping a little girl to colour it in.

‘Pat?’ the teacher said, turning from the blackboard. ‘Excuse me. I’ve asked you before to stay at your own desk, haven’t I?’

He ignored her. Still radiating that rakish charm, peering out shyly from under that golden fringe, he eased between the desks, peering over the shoulders of his classmates, flashing smiles and muttering comments to children who were all concentrating on planet earth.

‘Yes,’ Gina said, and I didn’t need to look at her to know that she was holding back the tears. ‘In answer to your question. It was a very stressful divorce.’

We did these things together.

There was no question that only one of us would go to the school, get lectured to by the surprisingly prim punk headmistress, and have to fret about our son all alone.

We were both his parents, no matter where he lived, and nothing could ever change that fact. That was our attitude.

Gina was miles better at all of this stuff than me – not feeling the need to be defensive about Pat, always communicating with the staff, opening up about our personal problems, giving anyone
who was vaguely curious a guided tour of our dirty laundry, which was surely getting a bit threadbare and old by now. And I took it to heart a lot more than she did. Or at least I let it depress me more. Because deep down, I also blamed the divorce for Pat’s problems at school.

‘Cheer up, Harry, he’ll grow out of it,’ Gina told me over coffee. This is what we did. After being dragged along to the school every few weeks or so we went to a small café on Upper Street. We used to come here in the old days, before we had Pat. Now these mid-morning cappuccinos were the extent of our social life together. ‘He’s a good kid. Everybody likes him, he’s smart. He just has difficulty settling. He finds it hard to settle to things. It’s not attention deficiency syndrome, or whatever they call it. It’s just a problem settling.’

‘Miss Wilkins thinks it’s our fault. She thinks we’ve messed him up. And maybe she’s right, Gina.’

‘It doesn’t matter what Miss bloody Wilkins thinks. Pat’s happiness – that’s all that matters.’

‘But he’s not happy, Gina.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He hasn’t been happy since – you know. Since we split up.’

‘Change the record, Harry.’

‘I mean it. He’s lost that glow he had. Remember that beautiful glow? Listen, I’m not blaming you or Richard.’

‘Richard’s a very good stepfather.’ She always got touchy if I suggested that perhaps divorce had not been an unalloyed blessing in our child’s life. ‘Pat’s lucky to have a stepfather like Richard who cares about his education, who doesn’t want him to spend all his time with a light sabre and a football, who wants him to take an interest in museums.’

‘And Harry Potter.’

‘What’s wrong with Harry Potter? Harry Potter’s great. All children love Harry Potter.’

‘But he has to fit in, the poor little bastard. Pat, I mean. Not Harry Potter. He has to fit in everywhere he goes. Can’t you see that? When he’s with you and Richard. When he’s with me
and Cyd. He always has to tread carefully. You can admit that, can’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The only time he’s relaxed is with my mum. Children shouldn’t have to fit in. Our little drama has given Pat a walk-on part in his own childhood. No child deserves that.’

She didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t blame her. I would like to have thought that our son’s trouble at school was nothing to do with us, and everything to do with the fact that he was a lazy git. But I just couldn’t believe it. The reason he had ants in his pants at school was because he wanted to be liked, he needed to be loved. And I knew that had something to do with me and my ex-wife. Maybe it had everything to do with us. How could I not wonder what it would have been like if we had stayed together?

‘Do you ever think about the past?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Do you ever miss us?’ I said, crossing the line between what was acceptable and what was not. ‘Just now and again? Just a tiny bit?’

She smiled wearily at me over her abandoned cappuccino. There was no warmth left in either the coffee or her smile.

‘Miss us? You mean staying home alone while you were playing the big shot out in the glamorous world of television?’

‘No, that wasn’t really –’

‘You mean going to your launches, and your parties, and your functions and being treated like the invisible woman because I looked after our son, instead of presenting some crappy little TV show?’

‘Well, what I was actually –’

‘People thinking I was second-rate because I was bringing up a child – when what I was doing was the most important job in the world. Telling people I was a homemaker and some of them actually
smiling
, Harry, some of them actually thinking it was
funny
, that it was a
joke.’

Not all this again.

‘I’ll get the bill, shall I?’

‘When what was really funny was that I had the kind of degree that these career morons could only dream about. When what was funny was that I was bilingual while most of those cretins hadn’t quite mastered English. Miss any of that? No, not really, Harry, not now you come to mention it. And I don’t miss sleeping in our bed with our little boy sleeping in the next room while you were out banging one of the office juniors.’

‘You know what I mean. Just the lack of complication. That’s all. There’s no need to drag up all that old –’

‘No, I can’t say I miss it. And you shouldn’t either. You shouldn’t miss that old life, because it was built on a lie. I like it now, if you really want to know. That’s the difference between you and me.
I like it now
. I like my life with Richard. To me, these are the good old days. And you should be grateful, Harry.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because Pat has a stepfather who cares about him deeply. Some step-parents are abusive. Some are violent. Many of them are indifferent.’

‘I should be grateful that my son is not being abused? Give me a break, Gina.’

‘You should be grateful that Richard is a wonderful, caring man who wants what’s best for Pat.’

‘Richard tries to change him. He doesn’t need changing. He’s fine the way he is now.’

‘Pat’s not perfect, Harry.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Oh, Harry. We all know that.’

We glared at each other for a few moments and then Gina called for the bill. I knew her well enough not to try to pay it.

We always did this – supported each other, tried to be friends, and then for an encore drove each other nuts. We couldn’t seem to stop ourselves. In the end we maddened each other by picking at old wounds, we turned the closeness between us into an infuriating claustrophobia.

I knew that I had angered her today. And that’s why the
news she told me as we were walking back to our cars sounded like an act of supreme cruelty and spite.

‘None of this matters,’ she said. ‘The trouble at school. All that tired old crap we keep dragging around the block. None of it matters any more, Harry.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We’re going to America.’

I just stared at her.

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. But it wasn’t definite. Not until this week.’

I thought about it for a while. But I didn’t understand. Not yet.

‘How long would you be gone? I’m not saying taking Pat out of school for a couple of weeks is a bad idea. Might do him some good. A break might be what he needs. It’s not as though he’s learning very much right now.’

My ex-wife shook her head. She couldn’t believe that I could be so slow.

‘Come on, Harry.’

And as we stood in that deserted school car park, I finally started to get it. I finally started to understand that my ex-wife could do whatever she liked. What a sucker I had been.

‘Hold on. Tell me you mean a vacation, Gina. Tell me you’re talking about Disneyland and Florida?’

‘I’m talking about leaving London, Harry. And leaving the country. I’m talking about us moving there for good. To live, Harry. Richard and me and Pat. Richard’s contract is ending, and he’s never really settled here –’

‘Richard hasn’t settled here? Richard? What about Pat? What about Pat being allowed to fucking settle?’

‘Would you like to watch your language? He’s seven years old. Children are very adaptable. They get used to anything.’

‘But his school is here. And his grandmother is here. And Bernie Cooper is here.’

‘Who the hell is – oh, little Bernie. God, Harry, he can make some new friends. It’s a work thing, okay? Richard can get a better position in the States.’

‘But your job is here. Look at you, Gina. You finally got your life back. Why would you throw that away?’

‘My job’s not quite what I wanted. I don’t even get to use my Japanese. What’s the point in working for a Japanese company if I don’t even get to use my Japanese? Don’t worry, we’re not talking about a place in the city. From Connecticut the train into Manhattan only takes –’

‘Don’t worry? But when would I see him? What about his grandmother?’

‘You would see him all the time. The school holidays go on for ages. You could come over. London to New York is nothing. What is it? Six hours?’

‘Have you talked to Pat about this? Does he know it’s not going to be a quick tour round Minnie Mouse and then back home?’

‘Not yet.’

I shook my head, trying to get my breathing under control.

‘I can’t believe you’re thinking of dragging him to the other side of the world,’ I said, although that really wasn’t true. I could believe it very easily. I began to see that she had always had this thing inside her, this belief that life would be better at the other end of a long-haul flight.

For years Gina had felt this way – when she was single, after we split up. And she still did. In the past Japan was the Promised Land. Now it was America. It was completely in character, this desire to start again on the other side of the world. Oh, I could believe it too easily.

‘What’s wrong with London? This is where he belongs. His family and friends – Gina, he’s
happy
here.’

She lifted her hands, palms raised to the heavens, taking it all in – Miss Wilkins, the trouble at school, the impossibility of our son sitting still for an entire lesson, Paris and the broken Eurostar, life in north London.

‘Well, obviously not. It will be a better life over there. For all of us. I don’t want Pat’s childhood to be like mine – always different homes, always different people around. I want his childhood to be like yours, Harry.’ She placed her hand on
my arm. ‘You have to trust me. I only want what’s best for the boy.’

I angrily shook her off.

‘You don’t want what’s best for the boy. You don’t even want what’s best for yourself. Or that loser dickhead you married.’

‘Why don’t you watch your mouth?’

‘You just want revenge.’

‘Believe what you want, Harry. It really doesn’t matter to me what you think.’

‘You can’t do this to me, Gina.’

She was suddenly furious. And I saw again that we could never recreate what had once existed between us. We could be polite, affectionate even, concerned about Pat, but the love we had lost was impossible to duplicate now. Because it was all used up. What do they say? Married for years, divorced forever. That was us. Gina and I were divorced forever.

‘You broke the promises – not me, Harry. You fucked around – not me. You were the one who got bored with the marital bed, Harry. Not me.’

She shook her head and laughed. I looked at the face of this familiar stranger. From his mother my son got his Tiffany-blue eyes, his dirty-blond hair, those slightly gappy teeth. She was definitely his mother, and I no longer recognised her.

‘And now
you
tell
me
what I can and can’t do, Harry? You’ve got some nerve. I am taking my son out of the country. Start living with it.’

Then she pressed her car key, and the double flash of lights as the central locking came off seemed to glint on her wedding ring.