Seeing Other People (21 page)

Over the next few weeks I began to feel like life had turned a corner. I stopped drinking to excess, started going to the gym and, bizarre though it sounded, in the Divorced Dads’ Club I now had some real friends. To my very great relief there had been no new encounters with Fiona and even work was going well. The week after the kids came round I managed to bag a world-wide exclusive interview with British actor and Hollywood star Jonah Lloyd-Hughes who was hot property since being arrested in LA on assault and battery charges against his fellow Hollywood actor Ray La Havas whom he’d allegedly attacked after witnessing La Havas striking his model girlfriend Casey Fields. Now that Lloyd-Hughes was back in London every publication in the world had wanted an interview and I’d landed it for the sole reason that back when he was a struggling actor I’d been the only journalist to review his one-man play at the Edinburgh Festival and praise the actor as a ‘star in the making’, a favour which, according his PR, he had never forgotten. In fact the only thing left on my to-do list was to work out exactly where Penny and I were heading – something that was a lot harder than bagging an interview with one of the biggest stars on the planet.

One of the most remarkable things about the separation was how quickly I’d gone from feeling like I knew her inside out to not being sure whether in fact I knew her at all. Outside our weekly counselling, whenever we spoke – normally while dropping off or picking up the kids – it seemed as though we were both so desperate to keep the fragile peace between us that in the process we failed to be ourselves. I was over-formal, Penny was needlessly polite, and the result was that even the kids noticed we were treating each other like relative strangers. At the time I had politely laughed along with Penny about this but afterwards when I went to say goodbye to her I could see that she understood what was happening just as well as I did. Without the day-to-day intimacy there was no familiarity and without familiarity it felt like we were on the fast track to becoming total strangers. Still, before I could even begin to think about dealing with that I had to face down the biggest challenge so far: Jack’s seventh birthday, the first big family occasion to have taken place since I’d moved out.

21

It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to feel like an outsider at my own son’s birthday party, or even that I knew all of the family and friends gathered at the house would be gossiping about me behind my back; it was more that I hadn’t been sure whether I was going to be invited at all. I’d seen it happen before. One of the sub-editors at
The Weekend
had split up from the mother of his kids six weeks before his son’s ninth birthday and because he’d managed to fall out with her family in the process he didn’t get an invite. He’d had to make do with seeing his son for an hour and a half two days earlier in the week and ended up spending the actual anniversary of his son’s birth staring at the walls of his poky flat in Putney. It had been, he assured me, the single worst day of his life.

Thankfully, Penny wasn’t like that. Three weeks before the big day, without prompting she brought up the subject of Jack’s birthday herself. ‘He wouldn’t be happy if you weren’t there,’ she’d said, handing me Jack’s invite handwritten in purple felt tip. ‘No matter what’s happened we’re still a family and we need to remember that.’

It was Penny who answered the door. She was wearing jeans and the grey mohair Whistles jumper I’d bought her for Christmas. She’d had her hair done, a short choppy style that made her look even younger than she already did. If she was trying to make me feel bad by looking like she could pull any man she pleased then she had accomplished her mission. However much as I appreciated that I wasn’t her desired audience I found it almost impossible to stop looking at her.

‘You look great. New hair?’

‘Just fancied a change.’

‘Well it looks amazing.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘Come in.’

I stepped past her, tapping the present under my arm with my index finger. ‘Where’s the birthday boy?’

Penny closed the door and gestured up the stairs. ‘On the loo. He’s been so excited that he hasn’t been for a poo since the day before yesterday. He’ll be there forever.’

‘And Rosie?’

‘On her way back from a sleepover at Carly’s.’ The doorbell rang and she turned to answer it. ‘I’d better get this. Why don’t you go and say hello to everyone in the kitchen and I’ll send Jack in when he’s done?’

The kitchen.

The one full of Penny’s family. The family who’d heard me make my vows in front of a packed room to ‘forsake all others’. Family who were doubtless aware that I was no longer living at home and why. I didn’t want to face them, I couldn’t. I hadn’t seen Fiona since that day in the car when I’d moved out of this very house. What if the pressure of being back here surrounded by people who hated me made me see Fiona again? I was supposed to be staying calm, avoiding stress, and this situation was anything but. As potentially hostile environments went this was right up there with an afternoon stroll through an Afghan minefield.

I looked at Penny. ‘Maybe it’s best if I just wait here.’

Penny shook her head. ‘No Joe, you’re going to have to face them all sometime and it might as well be now.’

It was like one of those moments in a Western when the bad guy walks into the saloon and everything pauses. The showgirls stop dancing. The fat guy on the piano stops playing and the drinkers cease their chatter waiting to see what will happen next. Penny’s mum glared at me, her stepdad stood, arms folded, wearing a look of disgust and her brother Simon refused to look at me at all. However Simon’s girlfriend, Ruth – much to the mortification of everyone in the room – marched over and gave me a huge hug. I’d always enjoyed Ruth’s company and the fact that she wasn’t allowing family politics to stop her doing what she’d always done made me like her even more.

However my conversation with Ruth was brought abruptly to a close by the arrival of Rosie, who launched herself into my arms. It was a Clarke family tradition that on a sibling’s birthday the other child got a present too and this year was no different. I gave Rosie a twenty-pound voucher to spend on her phone on games or downloads or whatever it was she was into at that moment. She was so happy that she screamed to the entire room that I was the best dad in the world. The look on Penny’s mum’s face was enough to let me know that it wasn’t an opinion shared by anyone else. Thankfully before anything could be said the doorbell rang again and a harassed-sounding Penny yelled down the stairs, ‘Can you deal with that, Joe? Jack’s had a bit of an . . . accident.’

It was the kind of message I didn’t need to hear twice and so I answered the door to half a dozen parents and their overexcited children. It was party time and it would be all hands on deck until the issuing of party bags in some three hours’ time. Grateful to finally be of some use I pointed the children towards the crisps and drinks, the adults towards the beer and wine and announced to anyone who cared to listen that the first game of pin the tail on the donkey would be starting in five minutes’ time.

The afternoon went well, helped in no small part by the free flowing of alcohol from the kitchen that helped all the kids’ parents to get along and the fact that I was an excellent master of ceremonies, making sure that the kids were constantly entertained. Having said that, even I was relieved when, at just after six, Penny called an end to the gathering with the classic: ‘Right everyone, come and get your party bags!’

‘I know sometimes I’m guilty of being too subtle,’ said Penny later, returning to the kitchen as I finished loading the dishwasher once everyone else had gone, ‘but honestly little Zachary’s dad just wouldn’t take the hint. Half a bloody hour I’ve been trying to turf him and his son out. It was like he didn’t want to go home!’

Penny laughed but I didn’t join in. Was this her subtle way of saying it was time for me to go? I’d had such a good time being back at home. I just didn’t want the day to be over.

‘I suppose I’d better be heading off too . . . It’s been really great. Thanks for inviting me.’

Penny looked at me, puzzled. ‘What?’

‘You were saying about Zachary’s dad overstaying his welcome and well . . .’

Penny sighed. ‘And when did you get so sensitive? I wanted Zachary’s dad to go because all he ever talks about is how much money he makes. Do you talk about how much money you make?’ I shook my head and smiled. Chance would be a fine thing. ‘Good,’ said Penny. ‘Now go and watch some TV with Jack. He’s been so distracted having his friends around he’s barely seen you all day.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Jack and I can catch up some other time.’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ she replied, ‘and if you’ve got any other plans think again because he already asked at breakfast if you could be in charge of bath- and bedtime.’

It was after nine as I came downstairs having kissed both Jack and Rosie goodnight. Penny was standing in the kitchen scrubbing at a particularly stubborn greasy handprint on the glass door.

‘Can you tell me why the kids feel the need to touch the glass when there’s a handle they can reach right there in front of them?’

‘I’m still trying to work out why we bother giving them shoes with laces,’ I replied. ‘The last time they were at mine I watched Rosie spend a good five minutes trying to shove her feet into her sparkly trainers without undoing them. Halfway through I said to her, “Wouldn’t it just be easier to undo the laces?” and she just rolled her eyes as if I was deliberately being dense and carried on about her business.’

Penny nodded. ‘She’s so lazy sometimes I wonder how she’s ever going to get on in the real world, but then I’ll find her in her bedroom happily beavering away on some project she’s invented for herself just because she’s a bit bored and she convinces me that there is hope after all.’ Penny stopped rubbing at the glass and inspected it with a satisfied look on her face. She gave it one final wipe before placing the sponge and spray back under the kitchen sink. ‘How did you get on upstairs with his Highness?’

‘He fell asleep in the middle of telling me all about the plans he has for his next birthday – apparently it’s going to be in a tree house and all his guests will have to swing to it from his bedroom.’

Penny rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘Do you think he had a good day? It was hard to tell with everything else that was going on.’

‘Are you joking? He was still singing the praises of your football cake even as he drifted off to sleep. You did an amazing job today, you really did, even Rosie said so and you know how hard it is to get a compliment out of her these days.’

Penny smiled, headed over to the fridge and opened the door. ‘I’ve got this that needs finishing if you’re up for it,’ she said, holding up a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay. ‘Or there’s some beer lying about somewhere if the dads didn’t polish it all off.’

‘A beer would be good if you’ve got one,’ I replied.

‘A beer it is. You flick on the TV and I’ll bring it through.’

It was dark in the living room and so I shut the curtains and turned on the lights, but the room seemed too bright so I turned them off and switched on the table lamp instead; but the light from that seemed too intimate somehow. I needed the kind of light that didn’t say or mean anything. I needed light without subtext and so I switched the main light back on, and sat on the sofa flicking through the channels.

I switched the TV off again just as Penny entered the room shielding her eyes as she came in.

‘It’s like Wembley stadium under floodlights in here! What’s wrong with you?’

‘I thought . . . never mind.’ She handed me my beer and switched on the table lamp, turned off the main lights and sat down on the sofa next to me. She was right. This was much better.

‘Nothing on then?’

‘Not that I could see.’

Penny put her feet up on the coffee table and took a sip from her glass. ‘I’m so shattered. I was up ’til midnight last night Googling designs for children’s cakes and baking half a dozen cake alternatives for his friends who are either gluten intolerant or allergic to something or other. Remind me again why it is we bother with children’s birthdays?’

‘Because we’re too scared not to,’ I replied. ‘We’d never hear the end of it if we didn’t throw them a party.’

Penny smiled. ‘There have been some good ones though, haven’t there? Do you remember Rosie’s third?’

‘How could I forget? Sixteen three-year-old girls in their best party dresses sobbing hysterically at the sight of the Fun Barn’s Birthday Bear.’

‘That poor teenager in that horrible flea-ridden suit was more terrified than they were. And he must have wet himself when Rosie’s friend Ella started screaming at him and kicked him in the shins.’

‘Another first for the Clarkes. How many families can say they’ve been banned for life from their local Fun Barn for GBH?’

Penny laughed so much that she spat a mouthful of wine down her top. ‘And how about Jack’s Spiderman party last year? Was there ever a funnier sight than them all sat around the table with their masks halfway up their faces shovelling away jelly and ice cream?’

‘How about the vision of two of them peeing in the garden because they wanted to water the plants?’

‘That was that evil child Oliver Holland and his oddball sidekick, Reece Owen. That rose bush never did recover from their interference. I’m so glad Jack’s not friends with them any more.’