Man and Wife

We avoided eye contact, me and all the other one-day dads. But there was a kind of shy fraternity that existed between us. When there were unpleasant scenes – tears or raised voices, the Egg McMuffin abruptly and angrily abandoned, an overwrought demand to get Mummy on the mobile phone immediately – we felt for each other, me and all the other Sunday dads.

As Pat and I lapsed into silence, I noticed that there was one of them at the next table being tortured by his daughter, a saucer-eyed ten-year-old in an Alice band.

‘Je suis végétarienne,’ said the little girl, pushing away her untouched Big Mac.

Her father’s mouth dropped open.

‘How can you possibly be vegetarian, Louise? You weren’t a vegetarian last week. You had that hot dog before The Lion King, remember?’

‘Je ne mange pas de viande,’ insisted the little girl. ‘Je ne mange pas de boeuf.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said her father. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’ve turned vegetarian? Why didn’t your mother?’

Poor bastard, I thought, and I saw the man’s love life flash before my eyes.

Probably a corporate romance, the woman in from the Paris office, trailing clouds of charm, Chanel and an accent that would make any grown man melt. Then a whirlwind courtship, seeing the sights of two cities, the time of moonlight and Interflora, an early pregnancy, probably unplanned, and then the woman buying a one-way ticket back to the old country when the sex wore off.

‘Je suis allergique aux Happy Meals,’ said the girl.

Pat had stopped eating. His mouth hung open with wonder. He was clearly impressed by the girl at the next table. Everything bigger children said or did impressed him. But this was something new. This was possibly the first time he had seen a bigger child speaking a foreign language outside the movies or TV.

‘Japanese?’ he whispered to me. He assumed all foreign languages were Japanese. His mother was fluent.

‘French,’ I whispered back.

He smiled at the little girl in the Alice band. She stared straight through him.

‘Why is she talking French then?’ he asked me, suddenly perking up. And it was just like the old days – Pat bringing me one of life’s little puzzles to unravel. I leapt upon it with gratitude.

‘That little girl is French,’ I said, keeping my voice down. I looked at the poor bastard who was her father. ‘Half French.’

Pat widened his eyes. ‘That’s a long way to come. French is a long way.’

‘France, you mean. France is not as far as you think, darling.’

‘It is, though. You’re wrong. France is as far as I think. Maybe even further.’

‘No, it’s not. France – well, Paris – is just three hours in the train from London.’ ‘What train?’

‘A special train. A very fast train that runs from London to Paris. The Eurostar. It does the journey in just three hours. It goes through a tunnel under the sea.’

My son pulled a doubtful face. ‘Under the sea?’

‘That’s right.’

‘No, I don’t think so. Bernie Cooper went to French in the summer.’ Bernie Cooper – always addressed by his full name – was Pat’s best friend. The first best friend of his life. The best friend he would remember forever. Pat always quoted Bernie with all the fervour of a Red Guard citing the thoughts of Chairman Mao at the height of the Cultural Revolution. ‘Bernie Cooper went to the seaside in French. France. They got a Jumbo. So you can’t get a train to France. Bernie Cooper said.’

‘Bernie and his family must have gone to the south of France. Paris is a lot closer. I promise you, darling. You can get there from London in three hours. We’ll go there one day. You and me. Paris is a beautiful city.’

‘When will we go?’

‘When you’re a big boy.’

He looked at me shrewdly. ‘But I’m a big boy now.’

And I thought to myself – that’s right. You’re a big boy now. That baby I held in my arms has gone and I will never get him back.

I glanced at my watch. It was still early. They were still serving McBreakfasts in here.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let me help you with your coat. We’re going. Don’t forget your football and your mittens.’

He looked out the window at the rain-lashed streets of north London.

‘Are we going to the park?’

‘We’re going to Paris.’

We could make it. I had worked it out. You don’t think I would just rush off to Paris with him, do you? No, we could do it. Not comfortably, but just about. Three hours to Paris on Eurostar, an afternoon wandering around the sights, and then – whoosh – back home for bedtime. Pat’s bedtime not mine.

Nobody would know we had gone to Paris – that is, his mother would not know – until we were safely back in London. All we needed were our passports.

Luck was with us. At my place, Cyd and Peggy were not around. At Pat’s place, the only sign of life was Uli, the dreamy German au pair. So I didn’t have to explain to my wife why I needed my passport for a kickabout on Primrose Hill and I didn’t have to explain to my ex-wife why I needed Pat’s passport to play Sega Rally in Funland.

It was a quick run down to Waterloo and soon Pat had his face pressed against the glass as the Eurostar pulled out of the station, his breath making mist on the glass.

He looked at me slyly.

‘We’re having an adventure, aren’t we? This is an adventure, isn’t it?’

‘A big adventure.’

‘What a laugh,’ smiled my son.

Three little words, and I will never forget them. And when he said those three little words, it was worth it. Whatever happened next, it was all worth it. Paris for the day. Just the two of us.

What a laugh.

My son lived in one of those new kind of families. What do they call them?

A blended family.

As though people can be endlessly mixed and matched. Ground up and seamless. A blended family. Just like coffee beans. But it’s not so easy with men and women and children.

They only lived a mile or so away from us, but there were things about their life together that were forever hidden from me.

I could guess at what happened between Gina and our son – I could see her still, washing his hair, reading him Where the Wild Things Are, placing a bowl of green pasta before him, hugging him so fiercely that you couldn’t tell where she ended and where he began.

But I had no real idea what went on between Richard and Pat, this man in his middle thirties who I didn’t know at all, and this seven-year-old child whose skin, whose voice, whose face were more familiar to me than my own.