been together for years. We have a child together. It can never be all that Romeo and Juliet crap again.’
‘I understand all that,’ I said, and most of me really did. But a tiny, tiny part of me wanted to say – Oh, I’m off then.
Gina was right – I wanted us to be the way we were at the start. I wanted us to be like that forever. And you know why? Because we were both so happy then.
‘You think it’s been easy living in our house?’ she said, suddenly flaring up. ‘You think it’s easy listening to you whining about not being a teenager any more, getting Pat to stop watching Star Wars for five minutes, taking care of the house? And you’re no help. Like every man on the planet, you think that as long as you do your little job, your work is done.’
‘Well,’ I said, taken aback. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t leave years ago.’
‘You didn’t give me a reason. Until now. I’m only thirty, Harry. Sometimes I feel like an old woman. You tricked me,’ she said. ‘You tricked me into loving you.’
‘Just come back home. You and me and Pat. I want it to be the way it was before.’
‘It can never be that way again. You changed it all. I trusted you and you broke my trust. You made me feel stupid for trusting you.’
‘People don’t break up because of a one-night stand, Gina. It’s not what grown-ups do. You don’t chuck it all away because of something like that. I know it hurts. I know what I did was wrong. But how did I suddenly go from being Mr Wonderful to Mr Piece of Shit?’
‘You’re not Mr Piece of Shit, Harry.’ She shook her head, trying to stop herself from crying. ‘You’re just another guy. I can see that now. No different from the rest. Don’t you get it? I invested so much in you being special. I gave up so much for you, Harry.’
‘I know you did. You were going to work abroad. You were going to experience another culture. It was going to be incredible. And then you stayed here because of me. I know all that. That’s why I want to make this marriage work. That’s why I want to try again.’
‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,’ Gina said, ‘and I’ve worked out that nobody is interested in a woman who stays at home with her child. Not even her husband. Especially not her husband. I’m so boring, he has to sleep around.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Looking after your child – it should be the most respected job in the world. It should be worth more than going to any office. But it’s not. Do you know how many people at your fucking little television dinners and parties and launches have made me feel like nothing at all? And what do you do?’ She made it sound like a sneer. ‘And what do you do? Me? Well, I don’t do anything. I just stay at home and look after my little boy. And they stare right through you – the women as well as the men, in fact the women are probably worse – as though you’re some kind of moron. And I’m twice as smart as half of these people you work with, Harry. Twice as smart.’
‘I know you are,’ I said. ‘Listen, Gina – I’ll do anything. What do you want?
‘I want my life back,’ she said. ‘That’s all, Harry. I want my life back.’
That sounded like trouble.
Things hadn’t quite worked out how my dad had planned. Not with his home. And not with me.
When my parents had bought the place where I grew up, the area had been countryside. But the city had been creeping closer for thirty years. Fields where I had roamed with an air rifle were now covered with ugly new houses. The old High Street was full of estate agents and solicitors. What my parents had thought would always be a living, breathing episode of The Archers started being swallowed by the suburbs from the moment we moved in.
My mum didn’t much mind the changes – she was a city girl, and I can remember her complaining about our little town’s lack of shops and a cinema when I was a kid – but I felt for my dad.
He didn’t like the army of commuters who clogged the railway station on weekdays and the golf courses at the weekend. He didn’t like the gangs of would-be yobs who drifted around the estates pretending they were getting down in South Central LA. He hadn’t expected to be so close to crowds and crime this late in life.
And then there was me.
My parents came to the door expecting to see the three of us arriving for dinner. But there was only their son. Bewildered, they watched me drive past their gate, looking for somewhere to park. They didn’t get it.
When I was a kid, there were no cars parked on this street – one garage for every family had been more than enough. Now you practically had to give yourself a double hernia looking for a parking place. Everything had changed.
I kissed my mum and shook my dad’s hand. They didn’t know what was happening. There was going to be too much food. They were expecting Gina and Pat. They were expecting happy families. And what they got was me.
‘Mum. Dad. There’s something I have to tell you.’
The old songs were playing. Tony Bennett live at Carnegie Hall was on the stereo, although it could just have easily been Sinatra or Dean Martin or Sammy Davis Junior. In my parents’ home the old songs had never stopped playing.
They sat in their favourite chairs staring up at me expectantly. Like a couple of kids. I swear to God they thought I was going to announce the imminent arrival of another grandchild. And I stood there feeling the way I so often felt in front of my parents – more like a soap opera than a son.
‘Well, it looks like Gina’s left me,’ I said.
The tone was all wrong – too casual, too glib, too uncaring. But the alternative was getting down on all fours and weeping all over their shag carpet. Because after yesterday’s trip to the park and a second sleepless night in a bed that was far too big for just me, I was finally starting to believe that she might not be coming back. Yet I felt I was too old to be bringing my parents bad news. And they were too old to have to hear it.
For a few moments they didn’t say a word.
‘What?’ said my father. ‘Left you where?’
‘Where’s the baby?’ my mother said. She got it immediately.
‘Pat’s with Gina. At her dad’s place.’
‘That punk rocker? Poor little thing.’
‘What do you mean she’s left you?’ the old man demanded.
‘She’s walked out, Dad.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He really didn’t get it. He loved her and he loved us and now all of that was finished.
‘She’s buggered off,’ I said. ‘Done a runner. Gone. Scarpered.’
‘Language,’
