Читать книгу The Complete Man and Boy Trilogy: Man and Boy, Man and Wife, Men From the Boys - Tony Parsons - Страница 20

We were meant to be celebrating.

Barry Twist had come up with the idea of a fifteen-minute delay system for the show, meaning we would go back to doing the thing live, but with a short time-lag before transmission as insurance against either the host or the guests going bananas.

The station was happy because it meant there was still time to edit out anything that was really going to give the advertisers the running squirts, and Marty was happy because it meant he no longer got paralysis of the lower autocue.

So Marty took me to lunch at his favourite restaurant, a fashionably spartan basement where well-fed people in television put authentic Italian peasant food on their expense accounts.

Like most of the places we went to, its bare floorboards and white walls made it look more like a gym than a restaurant, possibly to make us feel that we were doing ourselves some good in there. When we arrived just after two – I was running late after delivering Pat to my parents, leaving him with them because with Gina gone there was no one to pick him up after nursery – the place was already crowded, but the reception desk was empty.

A waitress approached us. She was clearly not having a good day. She was hot and flustered and there was a red wine stain on her white uniform. She kept doing this thing with her hair, which was shiny and black and cut in one of those old-fashioned bell shapes that you imagine on women in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, or on Hong Kong girls in the fifties. A bob. That’s what you call it. The fringe kept flying up as she stuck out her bottom lip and blew some air through it.

‘Can I help you?’ she said.

‘We have a table,’ Marty said.

‘Sure,’ she said, picking up the book of reservations. ‘Name?’

‘Marty Mann,’ he said, with that special little emphasis that indicated he expected her to recognise him now and practically faint with excitement. But Marty didn’t mean a thing to her. She was American.

‘Sorry,’ she said, consulting the book. ‘Can’t see your name on the list, sir.’

Then she gave us a smile. She had a good smile – wide, white and open. One of those smiles that just shines.

‘Believe me,’ Marty said, ‘we do have a table.’

‘Not here, you don’t.’

She slammed the book shut and moved to walk away.

Marty blocked her path. She looked pissed off. She stuck out her bottom lip and blew some air through her fringe. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

She was tall and thin with a dancer’s legs and wide-set brown eyes. Good-looking, but not a kid. Maybe a couple of years older than me. Most of the people working in this restaurant that looked like a gym were cool young things who clearly thought they were on their way to somewhere better. She wasn’t like that at all.

She looked at Marty and massaged the base of her spine as though it had been aching for a long time.

‘Do you know how important I am?’ Marty asked.

‘Do you know how busy I am?’ she replied.

‘We might not be on the list,’ Marty said very slowly, as though he were talking to someone who had just had part of their brain removed, ‘but one of my people called Paul – the manager? You do know Paul?’

‘Sure,’ she said evenly. ‘I know Paul.’

‘Paul said it would be okay. It’s always okay.’

‘I’m real glad that you and Paul have got such an understanding relationship. But if I don’t have a spare table, I can’t give you one, can I? Sorry again.’

This time she left us.

‘This is fucking stupid,’ Marty said.

But Paul had spotted us and quickly crossed the crowded restaurant to greet his celebrity client.

‘Mr Mann,’ he said, ‘so good to see you. Is there a problem?’

‘Apparently there’s no table.’

‘Ah, we always have a table for you, Mr Mann.’ Paul’s Mediterranean smile flashed in his tanned face. He had a good smile too. But it was a completely different smile to the one she had. ‘This way, please.’

We walked into the restaurant and got the usual stares and murmurs and goofy grins that Marty’s entrance always provoked. Paul snapped his fingers and a table was brought from the kitchen. It was quickly covered with a tablecloth, cutlery, a wedge of rough-hewn peasant bread and a silver bowl of olive oil. A waitress appeared by our side. It was her.

‘Hello again,’ she said.

‘Tell me this,’ said Marty. ‘Whatever happened to the good old stereotype of the American waitress? The one who serves you with a smile?’

‘It’s her day off,’ the waitress said. ‘I’ll get you the menu.’

‘I don’t need the menu,’ Marty said. ‘Because I already know what I want.’

‘I’ll get it anyway. For your friend here. We have some interesting specials today.’

‘Shall we have this conversation again once you’ve turned on your hearing aid?’ Marty asked. ‘Read my lips – we eat here all the time. We don’t need the menu.’

‘Give her a break, Marty,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’ She looked at me for the first time. ‘Give me a break, Marty.’

‘I’ll have the twirly sort of pasta with the red stuff on top and he’ll have the same,’ Marty said.

‘Twirly pasta.’ She wrote it down on her little pad. ‘Red stuff. Got it.’

‘And bring us a bottle of champagne,’ Marty said, patting the waitress on her bum. ‘There’s a good girl.’

‘Get your sweaty hand off my butt before I break your arm,’ she said. ‘There’s a good boy.’

‘Just bring us a drink, will you?’ Marty said, quickly removing his hand.

The waitress left us.

‘Christ, we should have ordered a takeaway,’ Marty said. ‘Or got here a bit earlier.’

‘Sorry about the delay,’ I said. ‘The traffic –’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, raising a hand.

‘I’m glad you agreed to the fifteen-minute delay system,’ I told him. ‘I promise you that it’s not going to harm the show.’

‘Well, that’s just one of the changes we’re making,’ Marty said. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you.’

I waited, at last registering that Marty was nervous. He had a set of breathing exercises which were meant to disguise him having the shakes, but they weren’t working now. And we weren’t celebrating after all.

‘I also want Siobhan more involved with the booking of guests,’ Marty said. ‘And I want her up in the gallery every week. And I want her to keep the station off my back.’

I let it sink in for a moment. The waitress brought our champagne. She poured two glasses. Marty took a long slug and stared at his glass, his lips parting as he released an inaudible little belch. ‘Pardon me,’ he said.

I let my glass stand on the table.

‘But all those things – that’s the producer’s job.’ I tried on a smile. ‘That’s my job.’

‘Well, those are the changes I want to make.’

‘Wait a minute. I’m not getting a new contract?’

Marty spread his hands as if to say – what can I do? It’s a crazy world!

‘Listen, Harry. You don’t want me to move you sideways into some little nothing job that you could do with your eyes closed. That would look terrible, wouldn’t it?’

‘Marty,’ I said. ‘Marty. Hold on. Hold on just a minute. I really need this job. Now more than ever. There’s the thing with Gina – I’ve got Pat living with me – and I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know all that. And I can’t lose my job. Not now.’

‘I’m sorry, Harry. We need to make some changes.’

‘What is this? Punishment for not being available twenty-four hours a day when my marriage is breaking up? I’m sorry I wasn’t in the office this morning, okay? I can’t leave my son alone. I had to –’

‘Harry, there’s no need to raise your voice. We can do this in a civilised fashion.’

‘Come on, Marty. You’re Mister fucking Controversy. You’re not worried about a little scene, are you?’

‘I’m sorry, Harry. Siobhan’s in. You’re out. And you’ll thank me for it one day. This could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. No hard feelings?’

The little shit actually held out his hand. I ignored it, getting up as quickly as I could and smacking my thighs against the side of the table.

He shook his head, all disappointed in me.

I began to walk out of the restaurant, my legs aching and my cheeks burning, only turning back when I heard Marty shriek with pain.

Somehow the waitress had spilled an entire plate of pasta in his lap.

‘Boy, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Would you like a little parmesan on that?’

My parents drove Pat home. My mother went around turning on all the lights while my father asked me how work was going. I told him that it was going great.

They stayed with Pat while I did our shopping at the local supermarket. It was only a five-minute drive away, but I was gone for quite a while because I was secretly watching all the women I took to be single mothers. I had never even thought about them before, but now I saw that these women were heroes. Real heroes.

They were doing it all by themselves. Shopping, cooking, entertaining, everything. They were bringing up their children alone.

And I couldn’t even wash Pat’s hair.

‘His hair’s filthy,’ my mum said as my parents were leaving. ‘It needs a good old wash.’

I knew that already. But Pat didn’t want me to wash his hair. He had told me so when I had casually dropped hair-washing into the conversation after we had come back from Glenn’s. Pat wanted his mother to wash his hair. The way she always did.

Yet we couldn’t put it off any longer. And soon he was standing in the middle of the soaking wet bathroom floor wearing just a pair of pants, his dirty blond hair hanging down over eyes that were red from tears and the baby shampoo that Gina still used on him.

It wasn’t working. I was doing something wrong.

I knelt by his side. He wouldn’t look at me.

‘What’s wrong, Pat?’ I asked him.

‘Nothing.’

We both knew what was wrong.

‘Mummy’s gone away for a little while. Won’t you let Daddy wash your hair?’

Stupid question. He shook his head.

‘What would a Jedi Knight do at a time like this?’ I asked him.

He didn’t reply. Sometimes a four-year-old doesn’t bother to reply.

‘Listen,’ I said, fighting back the urge to scream. ‘Do you think that Luke Skywalker cries when he has his hair washed?’

‘Don’t know, don’t care.’

I had tried to wash his hair with him leaning into the bath, but that hadn’t worked. So now I helped him out of his pants, scooped him up and placed him sitting down in the tub. He wiped snot from his little nose while I ran the water until it was the right temperature.

‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘We should do this together more often.’

He scowled at me. But he leaned forward and allowed me to run the water over his head. Then he felt my hands applying more shampoo and something snapped. He stood up, throwing one of his legs over the side of the bath in a pitiful attempt to escape.

‘Pat!’ I said. ‘Sit down, please.’

‘I want Mummy to do it!’

‘Mummy’s not here! Sit down!’

‘Where is she? Where is she?’

‘I don’t know!’

He blindly tried to climb out of the bath, howling as the suds dripped into his eyes. I pushed him back down and held him there, quickly hosing off the shampoo and trying to ignore his screams.

‘This is not how a Jedi Knight acts,’ I said. ‘This is how a baby acts.’

‘I’m not a baby! You are!’

I towelled him down, took him by the hand and dragged him back to his bedroom, his little legs moving quickly to keep up with me. We glared at each other while I put him in his pyjamas.

‘Making such a fuss,’ I said. ‘I’m really disappointed in you.’

‘I want Mummy.’

‘Mummy’s not here.’

‘But when will I see her again?’ he said, suddenly plaintive. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know, darling.’

‘But what did I do?’ he said, and it broke my heart. ‘I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it at all.’

‘You didn’t do anything. Mummy loves you very much. You’ll see her soon. I promise.’

Then I took him in my arms, smelling the shampoo that I had missed, holding him close for a long time, and wondering how two flawed adults had ever managed to make something so perfect.

I read him Where The Wild Things Are until he fell asleep. When I came out of his room there were three messages on the answer machine. All of them were from Gina.

‘I’m sorry, but I had to get away for a while. You’ll never know how much you hurt me. Never. It was supposed to be for life, Harry. Not until one of us got a bit bored. Forever – not until one of us decided that things were getting a bit dull in the old marital bed. It doesn’t work like that. It can never work like that. Do you think I could let you touch me when I know you’ve been touching someone else? Your hands, your mouth…I can’t stand all that. The lying, the sneaking around, the sound of someone crying themselves to sleep every night. I had enough of that when I was growing up. If you think –’

The machine cut her off. It only let you talk for a certain amount of time. There was a beep and then her second message. She was calmer now. Or trying to be.

‘I just spoke to Glenn. He told me that you collected Pat. That really wasn’t necessary. He was perfectly happy there. And I know how busy you are at work. But if you are going to look after him until I get back, then you need to know that he has his hair washed every Sunday. And don’t let him put sugar on his Coco Pops. He can go to the toilet by himself – you know that already – but sometimes he forgets to lift the lid. Make sure he cleans his teeth. Don’t let him watch Star Wars videos all the time. If he doesn’t sleep in the afternoon then make sure he’s in bed by no later than –’

Another beep. A final message. Not so calm any more, the words tumbling out.

‘Just tell Pat I love him, okay? Tell him I’ll see him very soon. Take good care of him until then. And don’t ever feel too sorry for yourself, Harry. You’re not Mr Wonderful. Women all over the world look after children alone. Millions of them do it. Literally millions. What’s so special about you?’

Long after I had turned off all the lights, I stayed there watching our boy sleep. And I saw that I had let everyone down.

Gina. My mother and father. Even Marty. I hadn’t been strong enough, I hadn’t loved them enough, I hadn’t been the man they wanted me to be, or the man that I wanted myself to be. In different ways, I had betrayed them all.

I pulled the blanket that Pat had kicked off up to his shoulders, making one final promise, which this time I would keep – I would never betray this child.

Yet there was a distant voice, like someone calling on a bad line from the other side of the world, and it kept on saying – you did, you did, you already did.