Man and Wife

I had a hunch that my wife didn’t completely believe that I could keep all those wedding vows, that in the end I would turn out to be nothing special. Just another Jim. She didn’t want a baby with someone who wouldn’t stay with her. Not a second time. And I could understand that. Because I felt the same way.

But as I drove home from the restaurant, I saw that having a baby wouldn’t make things more complicated for us. It would make everything a lot simpler. A baby of our own was just what we needed. To hold it all together. To create a home that would find room for all of us. Including Pat.

As I felt the muscles in my upper arms throb, still sore from the grappling techniques of the waiters, I realised we needed a baby to make our blended family into a proper family.

I needed to be a real father again. To Peggy. To the baby that Cyd and I would have together.

And to the boy they wanted to take away.

‘Can you give me a hand with this stuff, honey?’

Cyd was getting ready to go out to a gig. The kitchen was full of silver trays covered in clingfilm. Tonight it was antipasti – fat tomatoes stuffed with rice, prosciutto served with figs, thick slices of mozzarella decorated with sprigs of basil, pane alle olive, and tiny pizza marinara the size of compact discs.

So I helped my wife to carry it all out to the car, while she told me about the event. The business was still new enough for her to be excited.

‘First night. Off-Shaftesbury Avenue. Some Hollywood star who wants to do theatre. Ibsen, I think. I don’t know. Something Scandinavian. We’re catering for 200 at the after-show party.’

When her station wagon was loaded with Italian delicacies she slammed it shut and looked at me. And that’s when she knew that something was wrong.

‘What is it?’

‘Gina. And that loser she married. They want to leave the country. Taking Pat with them.’

‘For good?’

I nodded. ‘Bastards, the pair of them.’

‘What’s caused all this?’

‘Richard. London hasn’t worked out for him. He wants to try his luck in New York. As if his little career is the only thing that matters. As if Pat hasn’t got any rights.’

She put her arms around me. She knew what this meant.

‘How would you feel about Pat coming to live with us?’ I said.

‘Gina wouldn’t agree to it, would she?’

‘What if she did? Would it be okay with you?’

‘Whatever makes you happy, babe.’

‘Thanks.’

I felt a stab of sadness. Because she didn’t say that having Pat come to live with us would make her equally happy. Of course she didn’t say that. How could she? She said that she wouldn’t object – and I knew that my wife was a kind-hearted, generous woman, and that she loved me, and that she meant it.

So why wasn’t that enough?

Because I wanted him to matter as much to her as he did to me. Even though marriage had changed everything, and being the wife of Pat’s dad was very different from being the girlfriend of Pat’s dad. But I wanted her to see him with my eyes – how unique he was, how special, how beautiful. I wanted Cyd to look at Pat with the eyes of a parent. But only blood can make you feel like that. And with the best will in the world, you can’t fake blood.

‘Jesus,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘I’ve got to run. Can we talk about this when I get home?’

‘Sure.’

She squeezed my hand, kissed my cheek. ‘It’ll all work out, babe, I promise you. Got to run now. Don’t forget that Jim’s picking up Peg.’

How could I forget?

Jim’s sporadic outings to see his daughter had taken on the importance of a state visit. Excitement mounted in our house days before the event. I should have been sympathetic to Jim – another part-time dad, separated from his flesh and blood. But I was resentful, bitter and jealous. For all the usual reasons—that my wife loved him first (definitely) and best (probably). And there were reasons that had nothing to do with my jealous heart.

Jim turned up when he felt like it. He stayed away when it suited him. This should have reduced his stock in our house, but somehow it didn’t. He got away with murder. No matter what he did, Peggy was mad about him, was delirious with excitement when he came to call on his Norton.

And from Jim and Peggy I learned that children want to love their parents, want to love them with all their heart.

Even when they don’t deserve it.

Jim was late. Very late.

Peggy was perched on the back of a chair by the window, her face pressed against the glass, waiting for the appearance of her father’s motorbike.

But Jim wasn’t coming. I could sense it, because it had happened before. There would be no night out with Peggy’s old man. Not this time.

The phone rang and Peggy rushed to get it. I knelt on the floor, picking up the accessories of Air Pilot Lucy Doll and her high-flying friends. It’s so easy for a kid to lose these fiddly bits, and then they go crazy because they can’t find them. I carefully replaced a male flight attendant’s drinks tray.

Peggy came back into the room with the phone, trying to be brave, sucking in her bottom lip to stop it shaking.

‘It’s Daddy. He wants to talk to you.’

I took the phone. ‘Jim?’

In the background I could hear the music. ‘Baby, pull my love pump/ Baby, pull my love pump/ Baby, pull my love pump/ But not so hard next time.’

‘I’m at the dentist,’ Jim said, raising his voice above the music. ‘I can’t make it this time. Bloody shame. Try to explain it to her, will you, Harry? I feel really bad, but I’ve found something that urgently needs filling.’

I hung up the phone.

Peggy had disappeared.

I found her in her bedroom, hiding under her duvet. On the walls were posters of boy bands and Lucy Doll in all her incarnations, their fixed grins and perfect worlds shining down on one sad little girl.

I stroked her head. ‘Your dad will see you next time, darling. You know he loves you.’

‘He’s got a bad tooth.’

‘I know.’

‘And it hurts him.’

She sat up and I dried her eyes with an official Lucy Doll tissue, thinking what a great kid she was, and how she deserved better than her feckless father. But then every child in the world deserved a better father than Jim.