Читать книгу What We’re Teaching Our Sons - Owen Booth - Страница 21

We’re teaching our sons about our ex-girlfriends.

How many of them there have been. What they meant to us. Where it all went wrong, again and again.

We turn up at the doors of our ex-girlfriends with our sons in tow, ask if we can come in and state our cases.

Our sons sit on the sofa, accept offers of juice and biscuits and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, are generally a credit to us. Our ex-girlfriends entertain the thought, just for a couple of seconds, that we have borrowed or stolen these children in order to impress them. That we are up to our old ways.

We are not up to our old ways.

We are aware of the remarkableness of our ex-girlfriends. We know we are lucky men to have loved and lost such spectacular and interesting women, to be in a position now to try to make amends for all our terrible behaviour.

Our ex-girlfriends are not so easily convinced.

‘What are you doing here?’ they ask. ‘What is this about?’

‘We’re trying to make amends,’ we say, ‘having undertaken a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We want to make up for all the bad things we did back when we were drinking/gambling/on drugs/addicted to sex. For the lies, the betrayals, the constant unreliability, etc.’

Our ex-girlfriends are surprised.

‘You were addicted to sex?’ they ask.

‘Well, no,’ we say. ‘It’s just an example.’

‘Right. Because we probably would have noticed.’

‘Yes.’

Our ex-girlfriends think about it, remembering. Maybe for a bit longer than we’re comfortable with.

‘Now, Steve,’ they say, ‘he was definitely addicted to sex.’

Everyone is quiet for a bit then. Our sons shift their gaze from us to our ex-girlfriends and back again. We had expected this to go differently, if we’re honest. Outside the windows the late October light slowly fails.

‘Well, anyway,’ our ex-girlfriends say, eventually, ‘it was all such a long time ago.’

They see us to the door, thank us for coming, tell our sons what fine young men they are, wish us all the best for the future.

Our sons look at us, about to say what we’re all thinking.

‘Who’s Steve?’ they ask.