Seeing Other People (28 page)

As I picked up Jack so he could press the Reeds’ door buzzer it occurred to me that I wasn’t as well versed in the etiquette of the modern playdate as perhaps I should have been. Although prior to the birth of Rosie both Penny and I had been adamant that we would both share in the rearing of our family, the truth was once we became parents that all pretty much went out of the window. Of course I did my fair share of nappy changes and middle-of-the-night bottle feeds but the social stuff, the birthday parties, baby groups and playdates, became solely Penny’s domain. It made sense for many reasons, not least the fact that these gatherings were on the whole opportunities for female bonding and as such held no appeal to me whatsoever. ‘You’d be bored senseless,’ Penny would reassure me whenever I had a day off work and suggested taking Rosie to Rattle Time at the local community centre or offered to man a playdate. To add insult to injury she’d always add: ‘Anyway there’s plenty for you to be getting on with here,’ and she’d hand me a long list of jobs that needed tackling around the house while she was sipping herbal tea and putting the world to rights with her new mum friends. I didn’t resent this on the whole because it made sense – mums quite clearly needed the support of other mums – but it did feel odd that after so many years of mixing it up in terms of our gender roles (Penny knew her way around a toolkit far better than I ever did) the arrival of a baby should have led us to adopt such stereotypical roles. Now all that was in the past. Now we were both homemaker and breadwinner which wasn’t half as liberating as it might sound.

I needn’t have worried about my lack of playdate experience because Harry’s mum welcomed Jack and me both in so warmly and talked so freely (‘Hi, I’m Addy. You’ll have to excuse the smell in the hallway, Harry’s been farting for England all morning!’) that all the anxiety I’d felt – just how exactly was I going to fill two hours of conversation with a couple I’d never met before? – faded away. She was incredibly easy to talk to and after a short period of acclimatisation on the part of Jack, who always got a little bit shy in new places, the boys ran off to play in Harry’s bedroom leaving his mum and me alone in the kitchen with our cups of tea and small talk about the perils of young boys’ flatulence.

‘So, is your husband . . . Chris isn’t it? Is he out for the afternoon?’ I asked after a while of us chatting about the children.

‘Didn’t Penny tell you? Chris and I have separated.’

I thought long and hard about how best to respond to this news. Most of me wanted to say something bland like, ‘Oh, I see,’ in the hope we could get back to a safer topic of conversation like the weather or how much we hate wheelie bins so it was as much of a surprise to me as anyone else when I found myself saying, ‘Funny you should say that because Penny and I have separated too.’

Addy’s eyes widened. ‘Really? I had no idea. Penny didn’t say a thing.’

‘Well, she probably didn’t want everyone in the world knowing.’

‘No,’ replied Addy, ‘I can understand that. Mums at the school gates can be such busybodies sometimes. How have your kids taken it? You’ve got an older girl too haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Rosie, and well . . . neither of the kids took it well to begin with. Now I think they’re just about getting used to it which somehow seems even more heart-breaking. How about you?’

‘Harry took it really badly, he just wants everything to go back to normal. Chris and I are having counselling so who knows, maybe it will, but right now the whole thing couldn’t be more of a mess. And the worst of it is that this was supposed to be a new beginning for both of us. Chris had just got a new job, we’d made the move from Leeds, Harry was starting at a new school . . .’ Her voice started to falter. ‘I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve let Harry down really badly, like maybe all this is my fault somehow. That I didn’t try hard enough.’ She laughed self-consciously. ‘I’m so sorry to unload on you like this, Joe. Here you were expecting some idle chit-chat for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon and instead you’re talking failed relationships with your kid’s friend’s batty mother! You’re never going to want Jack to play with Harry ever again!’

‘It’s fine,’ I replied. ‘Truth is it’s quite nice talking about all this with another parent. Makes me feel like I’m not in it on my own.’ I stood up and smiled. ‘Listen, why don’t I make us another cup of tea and then you can tell me your life story.’

Aided by a mug of tea and the posh Marks & Spencer biscuit selection I’d brought with me on Penny’s instruction, Addy told her story. Born in Leeds, she’d met her husband, Chris, a recruitment consultant, while out clubbing with friends when she was twenty-four and working as a nurse in the obstetrics department of Leeds General Infirmary. They’d moved in together two years later, married three years after that at a country house hotel near Ullswater and a while later Harry was born and Addy believed that she had her fairy-tale ending.

Things were good between them for a few years but then Chris started to climb the career ladder which resulted in him getting moved all around the country for work meaning that he was never at home and soon the arguments began. The move to London was supposed to be the answer to all their problems. Chris would be away from home less, yet still able to advance his career, but he ended up being away more than ever and finally they had a huge row and Chris moved out. Addy was desolate, thinking he had gone for good, but a few days later he came round and they talked and for the first time in their relationship he acknowledged that they had a problem and needed outside help to solve it. That had been six weeks ago, and now once a week on a Monday evening in East Greenwich they were meeting with a grey-haired counsellor called Kate who listened as they carefully laid out the intimate details of their married life before her.

‘I think that’s why I started telling you my life story before you’d even asked,’ Addy explained as she wound up her tale. ‘The thing about counselling is once you start talking to complete strangers about your love life it’s really hard to stop.’

Embarrassed to have, in her eyes, dominated the conversation, Addy tried to get me to talk about my own situation but I felt far too self-conscious to even consider it. So I did the only thing I thought I could do in the circumstances: summed the whole thing up in a single sentence (‘Basically we were having problems and she asked me to move out,’) and hoped she wouldn’t push me further. Addy was a good sport and thankfully just laughed. ‘You’re exactly like Chris,’ she commented, ‘he used to think talking about your problems was pointless too.’

I should probably have left it at that but I didn’t. Or rather I couldn’t. Somehow it didn’t seem right presenting myself as a potentially injured party when the truth was somewhat different.

‘I had an affair,’ I said quietly. ‘It was just the once, with a colleague at work. Penny found out. Like you and your husband we tried counselling for a while but it didn’t seem to take.’

Addy raised any eyebrow. ‘How come?’

‘She’s met someone else.’

‘You really have been in the wars haven’t you?’

‘Just a bit.’

She looked at me thoughtfully. ‘How old was this . . .  colleague of yours? Younger?’

‘A bit.’

‘And by that you mean what? Thirty? Thirty-five?’

‘Twenty-five.’

Addy rolled her eyes in a what-is-wrong-with-men kind of way. ‘Have you any idea how hot your wife is? I saw her in the playground the other day picking up Jack and while she might not be twenty-five any more she’s absolutely gorgeous.’

‘I know.’

‘So why do it?’

I smiled. For some reason I couldn’t quite pinpoint it felt good to be interrogated like this. Maybe it was because she was a woman and I missed talking to a woman in a frank and forthright fashion; then again maybe it was because I hadn’t quite done with feeling bad about what had happened. ‘I have no idea,’ I replied. ‘I really don’t. Sometimes you just do things and you think no harm will come of them and it’s only when you’ve done them that you realise the only person you’ve fooled is yourself.’

‘You still love her don’t you?’

‘I never stopped.’

‘Does she know?’

‘I don’t think it would make any difference.’

Addy put down her mug and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Do you want my advice?’

‘Not really. I’ve got a feeling I won’t like it.’

‘Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You need to go and make peace with her. Whatever it is that she wants, give it to her. You know better than anyone what you’ve put her through so the very least you can do is stop playing the victim and apologise. I’m not saying it will bring her back to you, I’m not even saying that it’ll make her want to talk to you, but I guarantee you if you do this, the one thing you will gain is her respect.’

As hard as it was to admit it she was right. I rubbed my eyes and looked at her. Being honest was exhausting. ‘Is that what you want from your husband? Respect?’

‘It’s what I’ve always wanted,’ she replied. ‘That, and for him to tell me that he loves me and look like he means it.’

It took me two days to pluck up the courage to call Penny, but I eventually did and we arranged to meet at the house once the kids had gone to bed.

‘So what’s this about?’ asked Penny, putting two mugs of tea down on the kitchen table.

‘I want to talk, which is something I know I haven’t exactly been too good at of late . . . and well, I want to say that if you want the kids to meet Scott, it’s fine by me.’

Shock flashed across Penny’s face. This hadn’t been what she was expecting at all. ‘Are you sure?’

I felt myself wavering but I pushed on through with my decision. ‘Yes.’

‘Why the sudden change of heart?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I replied. ‘At least not now anyway.’

Although when I called to speak to the kids on the following Monday evening I wondered if the children would mention their meeting with Scott and how it had gone, both failed to do so. Jack, who at times had trouble recalling what had happened five minutes ago let alone several days before, only mentioned it in passing with reference to the dessert he had eaten at Pizza Hut. Rosie didn’t bring it up at all and although she went into great detail about the sleepover she’d had at Carly’s on Friday night, and the Saturday afternoon she’d spent playing laser tag at a party and her Monday at school in its entirety, it was as though she had completely erased Sunday lunch and her meeting with Scott from her brain.

Keen not to push things I didn’t mention the meeting again until the following weekend when the kids stayed over at mine. It was Saturday night and Jack and Rosie had long since gone to bed. I’d been watching a DVD that I’d picked up from work when I’d heard a knock on the living-room door and turned to see a pyjama-clad Rosie standing in the doorway.

‘Can’t sleep?’

She shook her head and joined me on the sofa, making sure she was cuddled up against me as close as she could be. She stared at the paused screen: a man running down an alleyway in New York, being chased by police.

‘I met Mum’s new friend last week.’

‘Oh yeah.’ I tried my best to sound casual but I wasn’t at all sure that it worked. ‘You mean Scott? What was he like?’

‘He was really nice.’

It was just four words and she obviously meant nothing by them, but each and every one was like the stab of a knife through my heart.

29

Saturday morning in the tinned goods aisle of my local Tesco. Graham Leith, the boorish financial adviser father of Jack’s friend Arthur, was in full-on whinge mode about his day.

‘I’ve been on duty since six this morning,’ he was saying. ‘Suzy left at eight for a spa day with her mates, I’ve just dropped the eldest at swimming and then I’ve got to pick him up to take him to a party. The baby’s got colic and is off her food and this one,’ he looked down at the toddler by his side who was busy trying to liberate a can of beans from the shelf next to her head, ‘has been in a foul mood all morning just because Daddy wouldn’t let her watch twenty-five episodes of
Angelina Ballerina
back to back. Chances are I’ll be dead by the time Suzy gets home.’

Listening to Graham left me conflicted. On the one hand, having been in his situation in the past I could sympathise with the strain that being alone on duty with the kids on a Saturday morning could cause. After a gruelling week at work there was no denying that a couple of bickering kids and a wonky shopping trolley was enough to bring the worst out in anyone. But today of all days I just couldn’t muster a single iota of sympathy for Graham, at least not when I would gladly have swapped the next forty-eight hours of soul-crushing emptiness that I called a life for just five minutes of the stuff Graham was clearly so sick of.

Saturdays never used to be like this. Saturday used to be the day I would long for more than any other. The start of the weekend, a day of freedom, the first opportunity of the week to divest myself of any title that wasn’t husband or father. While I was still half asleep the kids would pile into bed with Penny and me and after a long chat and snuggle we’d enjoy a leisurely breakfast secure in the knowledge that even if there were parties to attend or sleepovers to be dropped off at there would still be plenty of time for us all to be together curled up on the sofa in front of the TV at the end of the day. But not today. Today I was alone. It was Penny’s weekend to have the kids and I could only imagine that they were out celebrating the one-month anniversary of Scott’s introduction to the children’s lives because so far the kids had yet to say a bad word about him. I would’ve been happy with an occasional ‘He’s a bit dull,’ or even a ‘He’s fun but not as much fun as you, Dad,’ but instead all I seemed to hear was what great adventures they had together and ‘Scott says this,’ and ‘Scott says that,’ to the point where had Scott said anything more I’d lose it altogether. The Divorced Dads had tried their best to reassure me that what I was experiencing was nothing unusual. ‘Kids like new stuff because it’s new,’ Van had explained, ‘but in the end they always go back to the stuff that’s stood the test of time.’ And yet as much sense as Van’s comment had made it had provided me – their father who wanted his family back
now
, not at some unspecified date in the future – with little in the way of the consolation I craved.