Читать книгу The Complete Man and Boy Trilogy: Man and Boy, Man and Wife, Men From the Boys - Tony Parsons - Страница 22

A bit of a panic attack in the supermarket.

Nothing serious, nothing serious. Just the sudden realisation that a man like me, whose little family had broken into tiny pieces, was daring to do his shopping at the feeding trough of the happy family. I felt like an impostor.

Being surrounded by all the grotesques of aisle eight should have made me feel better – the women with tattoos, the men with earrings, the little children dressed like adults, the adults dressed like adolescents – but they didn’t.

I was shaking and sweating at the checkout, wanting it to be over with, wanting to be out of there, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps, and by the time the semi-comatose teen on the till handed me my change while idly scratching at his nose ring, I felt on the very edge of screaming or weeping or doing both at once.

I burst out of the supermarket into the open air and just at that moment the bag containing dinner for Pat, the cat and me lost its handle, and my shopping haemorrhaged into the street.

Gina’s supermarket bags never broke. We had done our weekly shop together every Saturday for seven years, and I never once saw a carrier bag that she had loaded spring a leak. But maybe Gina didn’t buy as many microwave meals as me. They weigh a ton, those things.

Suddenly there were cat tins and ready-in-one-minute meals everywhere, under the wheels of shopping trolleys, at the feet of a young man selling the Big Issue and skittering towards the road. I was on my hands and knees picking up a box that promised, ‘A Taste Of Tuscany’ when they saw me.

‘Harry?’

It was Marty. And there was a girl with him. Siobhan.

Marty and Siobhan. Holding hands!

The shock of seeing them together cancelled out any embarrassment I felt at being caught with my shopping scattered all over the pavement. But only for a moment. Then my face started burning, burning, burning.

It had been a while since I had seen them, although not that long. I had been out for just over a month. But my producer’s mind didn’t actually think in terms of weeks and months. Five shows, I thought. They have done five shows without me.

They looked good. Even Marty, the ugly little git. They were both wearing dark glasses and white trousers. Siobhan was carrying a supermarket bag containing a French loaf and a bottle of something dry, white and expensive. There might even have been a sliver of paté in there, too. But their bag wasn’t about to break. Two confident professionals doing a little light shopping before returning to their glamorous, high-powered careers, they didn’t look like the kind of people who had to worry about stocking up on cat food.

‘Here, let me help you,’ Siobhan said, bending down to catch a can of beef and heart Whiskas as it rolled towards the gutter.

Marty had the decency to look a little ashamed, but Siobhan seemed glad to see me, if a bit surprised to find me grovelling around on the pavement picking up cans of cat food, toilet rolls and microwave dinners, rather than picking up a BAFTA.

‘So – what are you doing these days?’ she asked.

‘Oh – you know,’ I said.

Pacing up and down my living room for hours every day – ‘Like a caged tiger’, my mum reckoned – after I dropped Pat off at nursery school, worried sick about how he was doing, worried sick that he might be crying again. And waiting for Gina to phone at four o’clock sharp every afternoon – midnight on her side of the world – although I always handed the receiver straight to Pat, because I knew that he was the only reason she was calling.

And what else? Talking to myself. Drinking too much, not eating enough, wondering how my life ever got so fucked up. That’s what I’m doing these days.

‘Still considering my options,’ I said. ‘How’s the show?’

‘Better than ever,’ Marty said. A bit defiant.

‘Good,’ Siobhan said, pleased but neutral, as though she didn’t think the old show’s fate would really concern a hotshot such as myself. ‘Ratings are slightly up.’

I felt like puking.

‘That’s great,’ I smiled.

‘Well – we’d better move,’ Marty said. It wasn’t just me. A few shoppers had started to smirk and point. Was it really him?

‘Yeah, me too,’ I said. ‘Got to run. Things to do.’

Siobhan grabbed me and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. It made me wish that I had shaved today. Or yesterday. Or the day before.

‘See you around, Harry,’ Marty said.

He held out his hand. No hard feelings. I went to shake it, but he was holding a can of cat food. I took it from him.

‘See you, Marty.’

Fucking bastards.

Fucking bastards the lot of you.

* * *

The phone rang when I was in the middle of bathing Pat. I left him in the tub – he could happily stay in there for hours, he was like a little fish – and went down the hall, picking up the phone with wet hands, expecting my mum. But there was a little transcontinental blip as the connection was made and suddenly Gina was in my ear.

‘It’s me,’ she said.

I looked at my watch – it was only twenty to four. She was early today.

‘He’s in the bath.’

‘Leave him. I’ll call back at the usual time. I just thought he might be around. How is he?’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fine, fine, fine. You’re still there, are you?’

‘Yes. I’m still here.’

‘How’s it going?’

I could hear her taking a breath. Gina taking a breath on the other side of the world.

‘It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘The economy is all screwed up. I mean, really screwed up. My company’s laying off locals, so there’s not much job security for a gaijin whose Japanese is a bit rustier than she thought. But the work’s okay. Nothing I can’t handle. The people are kind. It’s everything else. Especially living in a place about the size of our kitchen.’ She took another breath. ‘It’s not easy for me, Harry. Don’t think I’m having the time of my life.’

‘So when are you coming home?’

‘Who said I was coming home?’

‘Come on, Gina. Forget all that stuff about finding yourself. This is all about punishing me.’

‘Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing coming out here. But a few words from you and suddenly I know I did the right thing.’

‘So you’re staying out there, are you? In your flat the size of our kitchen?’

‘I’ll be back. But just to collect Pat. To bring him out here. I really want to make a go of it, Harry. I hope you can understand.’

‘You’re kidding, Gina. Pat out there? I can’t even get him to eat beans on toast. I can just see him tucking into a plate of sprats on rice. And where’s he going to live? In a flat the size of our kitchen?’

‘Christ, I wish I’d never mentioned the size of the bloody flat. I just can’t talk to you any more.’

‘Pat stays with me, okay?’

‘For now,’ she said. ‘That’s what we agreed.’

‘I’m not handing him over until it’s the best thing for him. Not you. Him. That’s what I agree to, okay?’

Silence. And then a different voice.

‘That’s for the lawyers to decide, Harry.’

‘You tell your lawyer – Pat stays with me. You were the one who left. Tell him that.’

‘And you tell your lawyer that you were the one who was fucking around!’

‘I can’t – I don’t have a lawyer.’

‘You should get one, Harry. If the thought of trying to steal my son from me ever crosses your mind, then get a very good lawyer. But you don’t mean it. We both know you can’t look after Pat permanently. You can’t even look after yourself. You just want to hurt me. Look – do you want to talk about it like adults? Or do you want to argue?’

‘I want to argue.’

There was a sigh.

‘Is Pat there?’

‘No – he’s out having dinner with a few of his fast-set pals. Of course he’s here. He’s four years old. Where do you expect him to be? On a hot date with Naomi Campbell? I told you he’s in the bath. Didn’t I tell you that?’

‘You told me. Can I talk to him?’

‘Sure.’

‘And Harry?’

‘What?’

‘Happy birthday.’

‘That’s tomorrow,’ I said angrily. ‘My birthday is tomorrow.’

‘Where I am it’s almost tomorrow.’

‘I’m not in Japan, Gina. I’m here.’

‘Happy birthday anyway. For tomorrow.’

‘Thanks.’

I got Pat from the bath, dried him down and wrapped him in a towel. Then I knelt in front of him.

‘Mummy wants to talk to you,’ I said. ‘She’s on the phone.’

It was the same every day. There was a jolt of surprise in those blue eyes and then something that could have been either joy or relief. By the time I gave him the receiver he looked more guarded.

‘Hello?’ he whispered.

I guess I was expecting bitter tears, angry recriminations, torrents of emotion. But Pat was always cool and composed, muttering one-word answers to Gina’s questions until he eventually handed me the phone.

‘I don’t need to talk to Mummy any more,’ he said quietly.

He walked off to the living room, the towel still wrapped around him like a shawl, leaving a trail of small wet footprints behind him.

‘I’ll call him again tomorrow,’ Gina told me, more upset than I had expected her to be, in fact so unravelled that I felt better than I had for days. ‘Is that okay, Harry?’

‘Any time is fine,’ I said, wanting to ask her how we had got to a place where we threatened each other with lawyers, how two people who had been so close could become a divorce-court cliché.

Was it really all my fault? Or was it just random bad luck, like getting hit by a car or catching cancer? If we had loved each other so much, then why hadn’t it lasted? Was it really impossible for two people to stay together forever in the lousy modern world? And what was all of this going to do to our son?

I really wanted to know. But I couldn’t ask Gina any of that stuff. We were on opposite sides of the world.