The Mum Who'd Had Enough Page 22

  Still, it’s puzzling me as I stride home. If Gary is sleeping around, then why on earth does she put up with it? She’s bright and attractive, and she strikes me as being no pushover. After all, she’s brought up three children – on her own for much of it, as far as I can gather. It’s quite baffling. Perhaps, quite simply, she still loves him.

  Back home, I check the final points on Sinead’s list. There’s the one about her therapist: Keep referring to Rachel as ‘your shrink’ (i.e., making a joke of it and so belittling the issue).

  From now on, the word ‘shrink’ will be banished from my vocabulary and nothing she mentions will be belittled, ever again. I’ll even go to couples counselling with her if she suggests it again. The very thought makes my back teeth clench together, but it’d be worth it, if she thinks it would help.

  Constant untidiness …

  Well, she can’t accuse me of that anymore. At the first opportunity I shall show her round our house in the manner of an eager estate agent.

  YOUR MOTHER!

  Hmm, well, Mum seems to have gone quiet again. Sulking, probably, that I haven’t taken her up on offers to come round and cook for me, as I’m incapable of operating a gas hob (I’m sure all will be fine – when she next needs a dog-sitting favour).

  Refusal to pick up Scout’s poos in garden!!!

  These days, anyone could inspect our lawn with a magnifying glass, and they’d never guess we owned an animal of any kind.

  So I’m getting there. While there’s still work to be done, I feel sure that tomorrow, Sinead will realise I am trying, at least. And that I’m prepared to do anything to win her back.

  *

  And so Saturday comes, the thought of our date (an actual date!) keeping me going all day to the point where I’m not even riled by the elderly bloke who bangs the backs of my legs with his shopping trolley as I wait in the supermarket checkout queue.

  When I run into Eric and Sarah in the high street, my change of demeanour must be apparent. ‘You’re looking a bit cheerier,’ Eric remarks. ‘Good day off yesterday?’

  ‘Not bad,’ I remark, then, as if I’d asked my crush to the school disco, I add, ‘Sinead and I are going out for dinner tonight. I asked her, and she said yes!’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ Sarah says, squeezing my arm. ‘Oh, Nate. Maybe she’s having a change of heart? I do hope so.’

  ‘Who knows?’ I say, but of course, that’s what I’m hoping for too. There’s a flurry of ‘good lucks!’ as we part, and I march home, swinging my carrier bags of groceries, allowing myself to enjoy a wave of optimism for once.

  Back home, Flynn has Max and Luke round. Impressively – although Sinead would probably beg to differ – they seize the sack of oven chips I’ve brought home and cook them, along with an impressive quantity of sausages. It may be less than six weeks since Sinead left me, but I’m finding it hard to believe that we ever had tofu and kale nestling in our fridge.

  With almost three hours to go – it’s just gone five, and I booked our table for eight – I take Scout on a long, meandering walk, more to kill time than anything else, and return to a riot of messy plates dotted about the kitchen. Over the sound of the boys’ guitars upstairs, I clear up, then shave – a double-shave, actually, just in case … though, I can’t imagine there’ll be any kissing tonight. But Sinead always preferred me clean-shaven to stubbly (‘Sandpaper face,’ she’d remark, not entirely affectionately), so why not be ready, just in case? This is followed by possibly the longest shower of my life, interrupted only because Flynn bangs on the door, saying Luke is desperate for the loo. All that remains is to transform myself into an impressive vision of manhood (at least, as much as I can possibly muster).

  ‘You’re going out?’ Flynn asks, appraising my appearance as he opens his bedroom door.

  I glance down, as if surprised to see that I am in fact wearing a favourite shirt (a subtle burgundy check), my newest jeans, and have even attacked my shoes with a duster. ‘Just meeting up with Mum,’ I say casually.

  ‘Oh.’ This seems to surprise him and, with his friends being here, I don’t want to go into any explanation. I’m sure he doesn’t want to either.

  ‘We’re just grabbing a bite to eat,’ I add, as if all of this is quite normal and recent events had never happened.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he says warily. Behind him, I glimpse Luke and Max lounging, guitars strewn about.

  ‘I’m sure it will be.’ I beam into the room like an awkward teacher on his first day with a new class. ‘So, everything okay here?’

  Luke nods. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay. Well, have fun, lads.’ Did that sound patronising? Is ‘fun’ a word they associate with the kind of birthday parties where there’d be jelly and cake? ‘Bye, then,’ I add quickly.

  ‘Bye, Dad,’ Flynn says, and closes his bedroom door.

  I head outside to the waiting taxi. Better not drive tonight, I decided earlier; I’ll certainly need a drink, though not so much that I start ranting and raving, begging her to come home. It feels like a first date now, such is my state of anxious anticipation. As the taxi pulls off, I’m spiralling back to my actual first date with Sinead, after we’d met and exchanged numbers at the All Saints gig. Really enjoyed meeting you, I’d said, when I’d mustered the courage to call her. Wondered if you’d like to go for a drink sometime? Funny how certain conversations imprint themselves on your brain. Please-say-yes-please-say-yes. Numerous times, I’d picked up the phone in my shared house – having waited until all my housemates were out – and started to tap out the digits. But I kept losing my nerve. Women have no idea what it’s like for blokes, having to do this stuff, poised for rejection. What would a beautiful girl like Sinead want with a geek like me?

  Yes, she’d said, that would be lovely. No, she wasn’t free the following night (dammit, why had I sounded so keen?). Or the next night, come to that. It was clear that her social life was far more interesting than mine. In five days’ time, she could see me – but it was worth the wait. There she’d been, sitting in the pub, close to her flat in Leeds: my train from Hesslevale had been delayed, so I was late. As this was in the days before social media, the only picture of her I’d been able to access was the one that had imprinted itself on my brain. When I walked towards her, I realised that image hadn’t done her justice. As her delicate face broke into the sunniest smile, she was even more lovely than I’d remembered.

  I glance out of the taxi window now as we stop at red lights in town. Across the street, Burger Bill’s looks busy tonight. I glimpse a young waitress with blonde pigtails, then a flash of purplish hair: Tanzie. It’s raining lightly now. So much rain this summer – more than I can ever remember. I hope she doesn’t have to hang about for ages at the bus stop tonight. I study the garish orange sign, depicting a cartoon burglar in stripy T-shirt and mask, biting into a burger of enormous proportions. Then the taxi moves off, and it’s not Tanzie who’s occupying my thoughts, but my wife once more.

  ‘I’ll pick you up in a cab,’ I’d suggested, when I called Sinead to tell her I’d booked the table.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll be fine making my own way there.’

  It occurred to me that perhaps she was trying to minimise the amount of time she would have to spend in my company – or perhaps she wanted to keep her options open, in case she had a sudden urge to make a quick getaway? But now I decide I was just being paranoid. She agreed to come, didn’t she? Which suggests that she wants to see me. Maybe she just wants to make it clear how terribly unhappy she’s been. Oh, I realise now that I should have known all along, as the signs were there: the listlessness, the muttered complaints, the pills she was taking for a few months around the start of the year. Maybe someone had removed my brain and replaced it with pillow stuffing. But I truly had no idea of how bad things had become.

  We’re almost at the restaurant now, and the rain is falling more heavily. The cab driver puts on the radio – and Bruce Springsteen fills the car.r />
  I sit back and smile, deciding it’s a good omen. My God, how I’ve missed her just being there at home, and lying beside me at night. It’ll be all I can do not to take her in my arms and kiss her passionately on her beautiful mouth.

  I close my eyes for a moment and allow the lyrics to flood into my head. They are intensely moving and are doing a sterling job of blowing away my anxieties. In terms of passion and energy, no one else touches Springsteen, as far as I am concerned. ‘American patriot crap by some guy in double denim,’ according to renowned rock critic Tanzie Miles. But what does she know?

  The driver pulls up outside Elliot’s. I pay him and virtually bound into the restaurant.

  ‘Hi, d’you have a reservation?’ asks the immaculate young woman who greets me.

  ‘Yes, it’s Turner. Table for two …’

  I glance around as she checks the screen at a small counter area. The restaurant is around two-thirds full, beautifully lit with elegant sixties-style table lamps, and bold, splashy abstracts adorn the walls. For a moment, I feel like that ill-formed musician of twenty-four years who was set on impressing his new girlfriend. I took Sinead to a French restaurant once, and was appalled to discover that the menu was actually in French – in Hesslevale! What was happening to the place? I racked my brain for any remnants of schoolboy French, but all I could remember was, Ou est la pharmacie? Luckily, Sinead knew enough to find her way around the menu, and made me laugh by ramping up her French accent as we ordered.

  ‘Here you are. Could you come with me, please?’ the woman says now.

  ‘Great, thank you.’ I inhale deeply and follow her to a table at the back of the restaurant.

  ‘Is this okay for you?’ She smiles pleasantly.

  Okay? It’s bloody perfect! ‘It’s lovely, thanks,’ I say, trying to sound as if I come to places like this all the time. It is perfect, too. If I’d walked in and been allowed to choose any table, this would be it, tucked away in a corner by a window consisting of tiny panes, overlooking a shrub-filled garden.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink to start with?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes please.’ I pick up the wine menu and stare at it. Should I order a bottle for both of us? You treat me like an idiot … No, better let her choose the wine. ‘Just a glass of house white for now, please,’ I say, hoping that doesn’t make me sound like a halfwit.

  ‘Sure.’ The woman beams and disappears, leaving me to gaze at the entrance in anticipation of the arrival of my wife.

  An older couple drifts in, smiling and sparkly, the woman’s red dress encrusted with tiny beads. Once upon a time I might have thought her outfit a bit too ritzy for a restaurant in Hesslevale – albeit a posh one – but now I can see that she’s dressed for an occasion, perhaps an anniversary. Sixteen years, Sinead and I have been married. I should have made an effort on our last anniversary – but what’s the correct material to mark it with? It’s easy with the biggies – silver, golden – but with the others it’s stuff like paper and tin. I mean, what do you give someone for a tin anniversary? A trowel for the garden? Quite rightly, Sinead would have clonked me over the head with it.

  Now, as I sit here, my gaze locked upon the restaurant’s entrance, I remember Paolo making a big thing of his and Bea’s ‘wood’ anniversary. In the pub one night, he told me how he’d had a personalised plaque made, depicting the beachside cabin they’d stayed in on honeymoon, carved from a piece of oak. At the time, I’d thought that was touching – if a bit over the top. But perhaps that’s the level of thought and imagination that’s required in order to show one’s devotion? If it is, then so be it – I’ll have a poem embroidered onto a tablecloth for our ‘linen’ anniversary if that’s what it takes (or have I missed the boat with ‘linen’?).

  I’m still mulling over presents; specifically Sinead’s birthday now, which is coming up in two weeks’ time. Then my tumbling thoughts halt abruptly as here she is, a vision in a pale blue dress under a neat black jacket.

  My heart quickens as I jump up from my seat. She is greeted at the entrance by a bearded young man who takes her jacket. She smiles broadly, thanking him. Now she’s glancing around the room, her eyes meeting mine as she makes her way towards me. She is wearing pinkish lipstick, and her hair in a style I’ve never seen before, or at least – shamefully – perhaps not registered; could that be Abby’s influence? It suggests, disconcertingly, that things are moving on without my involvement but admittedly, it suits her very much. It’s all piled up, slightly haphazardly, apart from springy curls which have escaped – maybe that’s deliberate? – to bounce around her finely-boned cheeks.

  She arrives at our table and I give her a brief hug. ‘Hello, love,’ I say.

  ‘Hello Nate.’ There’s a smile, so small it’s barely perceptible – but it’s there.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ I add.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she says as she sits down. We look at each other, and although neither of us seems to know what to say next, it feels anything but awkward to me.

  I’m on Fire, Bruce Springsteen belted out in the taxi. And now I – a lanky, speccy driving examiner from Huddersfield – am on fire too.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As she’s driven here, she won’t be having any wine. While this is mildly disappointing, it is of course her choice.

  ‘I just thought it’d be easier,’ she explains, turning to ask the waitress for a sparkling water.

  ‘Right. So, are you on a health kick?’ Ouch. I regret asking this immediately. Like saying ‘your shrink’, it’s probably one of those dated phrases that’ll mark me out as being stuck in some Neanderthal time warp.

  ‘I just didn’t feel like drinking tonight,’ she says lightly.

  ‘Easing off on the lady petrol, then?’

  Sinead’s eyes widen. God, what possessed me to say that? I meant it as a joke but it came out sounding as if I have her down as a borderline alcoholic.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mutter. ‘I’m talking rubbish. Take no notice of me.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Her tone softens, and a hint of a smile plays on her lips.

  ‘I’m a bit all over the place,’ I add as we grab at the menus.

  ‘Me too,’ Sinead says, glancing around the restaurant. ‘This is really lovely, though. Thanks for booking it. It’s a real treat.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay.’ I look at her across the table. Could this be it? I wonder. Can I possibly begin to hope that, after tonight, she might consider coming back to me? ‘I love that dress,’ I add.

  ‘It’s ancient,’ she says.

  ‘Still fits you perfectly, though.’ In fact, I am bluffing as I don’t remember seeing it before. What have I been doing these past few years? Blundering around with a sack over my head? ‘Anyway, thanks for agreeing to come,’ I add. ‘I just thought, after everything that’s happened, it’d be nice for us to have some time—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says quickly. ‘You don’t have to explain. It’s good to see you too.’

  My heart swells at that. So it’s good to see me! At least, she is clearly not finding my presence completely abhorrent. I smile and look back at my menu, although it could be a list of the brackets and screws stocked by B&Q for all I am able to focus on it. I adjust my specs, my eyes lighting upon something termed ‘fanned rump of lamb’, which sounds tempting. However, considering Sinead’s pescatarian tendencies, perhaps it would be unseemly to chomp away at an infant sheep in front of her (I’ve never quite understood why fish are different. I mean, they have hearts and faces, just as lambs do – although not legs. Is that what gets her? That, basic shape-wise at least, they’re not so different to dogs, and it would seem like a small step away from eating Scout?). Catching my thoughts racing, I try to calm them. Anyway, now is not the time to question her dietary choices.

  She chooses wild salmon, and I dither over copying her – which might seem rather lame, seeing as it’s not what I’d go for normally – but eventually opt for tuna steak. We order, and
with her encouragement I ask for a second glass of wine, as my first one seems to have been quaffed extremely quickly by an invisible, extremely thirsty thief.

  ‘Just because I’m not drinking doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t,’ she points out.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just relax,’ she adds. ‘We don’t have to be on best behaviour with each other, do we?’

  ‘Oh, I thought you might prefer it to me being my usual disgusting, obnoxious self—’

  ‘Nate, I’ve never thought—’

  ‘I’m joking,’ I say quickly, wondering at what point I will stop saying the wrong thing, and be able to act normally. ‘So, um …’

  ‘So, how have you been?’ she asks.

  I clear my throat. ‘You know. You can imagine how things are, I’m sure.’

  Sinead nods. ‘I’m sorry, Nate. I wish we could have met up before now but I just haven’t felt able to.’ She pauses. ‘D’you understand that?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I murmur, on best behaviour still.

  ‘How d’you think Flynn seems at the moment?’

  I consider this, as I’m not entirely sure of the answer myself. ‘I think he’s okay. The lads are round tonight. Oh, and I took him for an appointment yesterday, about that stiffness in his hand …’

  ‘I was going to do that,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘Well, it was all fine,’ I say quickly. ‘You know what he’s like – he’s convinced he doesn’t need either of us with him anymore—’

  ‘So it was yesterday? I’d have taken the time off!’

  ‘You didn’t need to. I dealt with it.’

  Her face settles into a frown. I’d actually thought she’d be pleased that I’d taken him and not bothered her. ‘Did you see Dr Kadow?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah, he was great. There’s a bit of inflammation, he said, so Flynn has some cream—’

  ‘Nate, I’m happy to do those appointments with Flynn,’ she asserts. Now I’m not sure whether she’s annoyed because she thinks I am incapable of sitting and conversing with a doctor, or just that I hadn’t mentioned the appointment. It was just an oversight, that was all, and I have been trying to avoid bothering her with too many calls.