me by the need for work and money. I was separated from Pat by divorce and residency orders. Was it really so different? Yes, it was different.
Even if I rarely saw my father – and perhaps I am kidding myself, but even now I believe I can recall every kickabout I ever had with my old man, every football match we went to together, every trip to the cinema – my father was never afraid that someone would steal me away, that I might start calling some other man dad.
He went through a lot in his life, from a dirt-poor childhood to world war to terminal cancer. But he never had to go through that.
Wait until your father gets home, I was told by my mum, again and again.
And so I did. I spent my childhood waiting for my father to come home. And perhaps Pat waited too. But he knew in his heart that his father was never coming home. Not any more.
My old man thought that the worst thing in this world you can be is a bad parent to your child. But there’s something almost as bad as that, Dad.
You can be a stranger.
And of course I wanted my son to have a happy life. I wanted him to be a good boy for his mother, and to get on okay with her new husband, and to do well at school, and to realise how lucky he was to have found a friend like Bernie Cooper.
But I also wanted my son to love me the way he used to love me.
Let’s not forget that bit.
By the time the black cab finally crawled into the street where he lived, Pat was fast asleep.
I rarely saw my son sleeping these days, and I was surprised how it seemed to wipe away the years. Awake, his sweet face seemed permanently on guard, glazed with the heart-tugging vigilance of a child who has had to find a place between his divorced parents. Awake, he was sharp-eyed and wary, constantly negotiating the minefield between a mother and father who at some point in his short life had grown sick of living under the same roof. But, asleep, he was round-faced and defenceless again, his flimsy shields all gone. Not a care in the world.
The lights in his home were blazing. And they were all out on the little pathway, lit up by the security light, waiting for our return.
Gina, my ex-wife, that face I had once fallen in love with now pinched with fury.
And Richard, her Clark Kent lookalike, gym-toned and bespectacled, every inch the smug second husband, offering comfort and support.
Even Uli the au pair was standing watch, her arms folded across her chest like a junior fishwife.
Only the enormous policeman who was with them looked vaguely sympathetic. Perhaps he was a Sunday dad, too.
Gina marched down the path to meet us as I paid the driver. I pushed open the cab door and gently scooped my son up in my arms. He was getting heavier by the week. Then Gina was taking him away, looking at me as though we had never met.
‘Are you clinically insane?’
‘The train –’
‘Are you completely mad? Or do you do these things to hurt me?’
‘I called as soon as I knew we weren’t going to make it home by bedtime.’
It was true. I had called them on a borrowed mobile from the Gare du Nord. Gina had been a bit hysterical to discover we were stranded in a foreign country. Lucky I had to cut it short.
‘Paris. Bloody Paris. Without even asking me. Without even thinking.’
‘Sorry, Gina. I really am.’
‘“Sorry, Gina,”’ she parroted. ‘“So sorry, Gina.”’
I might have guessed she was going to start the parrot routine. If you have been married to someone, then you know exactly how they argue. It’s like two boxers who have fought each other before. Ali and Frazier. Duran and Sugar Ray. Me and Gina. You know each other too well.
She did this when our marriage was starting to fall apart – repeating my words, holding them up and finding them wanting, throwing them back at me, along with any household items that were lying around. Making my apologies, alibis and excuses all seem empty and feeble. Below the belt, I always thought.
We actually didn’t fight all that often. It wasn’t that kind of marriage. Not until the very end. Although you would never guess that now.
‘We were worried sick. You were meant to be taking him to the park, not dragging him halfway round Europe.’
Halfway round Europe? That was a bit rich. But then wanton exaggeration was another feature of Gina’s fighting style.
I couldn’t help remembering that this was a woman who had travelled to Japan alone when she was a teenager and lived there for a year. Now that’s halfway round the world. And she loved it. And she would have gone back.
If she hadn’t met me.
If she hadn’t got pregnant.
If she hadn’t given up Japan for her boys.
For Pat and me. We used to be her boys. Both of us. It was a long time ago.
‘It was only Paris, Gina,’ I said, knowing it would infuriate her, and unable to restrain myself. We knew each other far too well to argue in a civilised manner. ‘It’s just like going down the road. Paris is practically next door.’
‘Only Paris? He’s seven years old. He has to go to school in the morning. And you say it’s only Paris? We phoned the police. I was ringing round the hospitals.’
‘I called you, didn’t I?’
‘In the end. When you had no choice. When you knew you weren’t going to get away with it.’ She hefted Pat in her arms. ‘What were you thinking of, Harry? What goes on in your head? Is there anything in there at all?’
How could she possibly understand what went on in my head? She had him every day. And I had him for one lousy day a week.
She was carrying Pat up the garden path now. I trailed behind her, avoiding eye contact with her husband and the au pair and the enormous cop. And what was that cop doing here anyway? It was almost as if someone had reported a possible kidnapping. What kind of nut job would do a thing like that?
‘Look, Gina, I really am sorry you were so worried.’ And it was true. I felt terrible that she had been phoning the hospitals, the police, thinking the worst. I could imagine how that felt. ‘It won’t happen again. Next Sunday I’ll –’
‘I’ll have to think about next Sunday.’
That stopped me in my tracks.
‘What does that mean? I can still see him next Sunday, can’t I?’
She didn’t answer. She was finished with me. Totally finished with me.
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