were lucky.
Pat was on a saline drip, his face as white as his pillow, his head swathed in bandages. I sat on his bed, stroking his free arm, and his eyes flickered open.
‘You angry with me?’ he asked, and I shook my head, afraid to speak.
He closed his eyes, and suddenly I knew that I could do this thing.
I could see that my performance so far had been pretty poor. I didn’t have enough patience. I spent too much time thinking about Gina and even Cyd. I hadn’t been watching Pat closely enough in the park. All that was undeniable. But I could do this thing.
Maybe it would never be perfect. Maybe I would make a mess of being a parent just as I had made a mess of being a husband.
But for the first time I saw that being a man would have nothing to do with it.
All families have their own legends and lore. In our little family, the first story that I featured in was when I was five years old and a dog knocked out all my front teeth.
I was playing with a neighbour’s Alsatian behind the row of shops where we had our flat. The dog was licking my face and I was loving it until he put his front paws on my chest to steady himself and tipped me over. I landed flat on my mouth, blood and teeth everywhere, my mother screaming.
I can just about remember the rush to hospital and being held over a basin as they fished out bits of broken teeth, my blood dripping all over the white enamel sink. But most of all I remember my old man insisting that he was staying with me as they put me out with the gas.
When the story was retold in our family, the punch line was what I did when I came home from the hospital with my broken mouth – namely stuff it with a bag of salt and vinegar crisps.
That ending appealed to my old man, the idea that his son came back from the hospital with eight bloody stumps where his front teeth used to be and was so tough that he immediately opened a packet of crisps. But in reality I wasn’t tough at all. I just liked salt and vinegar crisps. Even if I had to suck them.
I knew now that my dad wasn’t quite as tough as he would have liked to have been. Because nobody feels tough when they take their child to a hospital. The real punch line to that story was that my father had refused to leave my side.
Now I could understand how he must have felt watching his five-year-old son being put out with gas so that the doctors could remove bits of broken teeth from his gums and tongue.
He would have had that feeling of helpless terror that only the parent of a sick or injured child can understand. I knew exactly how he must have felt – like life was holding him hostage. Was it really possible that I was starting to see the world with his eyes?
He was standing outside the main entrance to the hospital, smoking one of his roll-up cigarettes. He must have been the only surviving Rizla customer in the world who didn’t smoke dope.
He looked up at me, holding his breath.
‘He’s going to be fine,’ I said.
He released a cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘It’s not – what did they call it? – a compressed fracture?’
‘It’s not fractured. They’ve given him twelve stitches and he’ll have a scar, but that’s all.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said. He took a tug on his roll-up. ‘And how about you?’
‘Me? I’m fine, Dad.’
‘Do you need anything?’
‘A good night’s kip would be nice.’
When I was with my father, I sometimes found myself talking his language. He was the only person in the country who still referred to sleep as kip.
‘I mean, are you all right for money? Your mum told me you’re not going to take this job.’
‘I can’t. The hours are too long. I’d never be home.’ I looked across the almost empty carpark to where the night sky was streaked with light. Somewhere birds were singing. It wasn’t late any more. It was early. ‘But something will turn up.’
He took out his wallet, peeled off a few notes and handed them to me.
‘What’s this for?’ I asked.
‘Until something turns up.’
‘That’s okay. I appreciate the offer, Dad, but something really will turn up.’
‘I know it will. People always want to watch television, don’t they? I’m sure you’ll get something soon. This is for you and Pat until then.’
My dad, the media expert. All he knew about television was that these days they didn’t put on anything as funny as Fawlty Towers or Benny Hill or Morecambe and Wise. Still, I took the notes he offered me.
There was a time when taking money from him would have made me angry – angry at myself for still needing him and his help at my age, and even angrier at him for always relishing his role as my saviour.
Now I could see that he was just sort of trying to show me that he was on my side.
‘I’ll pay this back,’ I said.
‘No rush,’ said my father.
Gina wanted to get on the next plane home, but I talked her out of it. Because by the time I finally reached her late the following day, getting on the next plane home didn’t matter quite so much.
She had missed those awful minutes rushing Pat to the emergency room. She had missed the endless hours drinking tea we didn’t want while waiting to learn if his tests were clear. And she had missed the day when he sat up with his head covered in bandages, clutching his light sabre, in a bed next to the little girl who had lost all her hair because of the treatment she was receiving.
Gina had missed all that, she had missed all that through no fault of her own. Personally, I blamed that fucking bastard Richard.
By the time I reached Gina, we knew that Pat was going to be all right. Now I didn’t want her to come home.
I told myself that it was because I didn’t want her to hold Pat and tell him everything was going to be fine and then leave again. But I knew it was not quite as noble as that. Where the fuck was Gina when we needed her?
‘I can be there tomorrow,’ she said. ‘This job can wait.’
‘There’s no need,’ I said, dead calm. ‘It was just a knock. A bad knock. But he’s going to be okay.’
‘I’ll be coming home soon anyway. I’m not quite sure when –’
‘Don’t change your plans,’ I said.
Listen to us – as formal as two people feeling their way at a dull dinner party. Once we could talk all night, once we could talk about anything. Now we sounded like two strangers who had never been properly introduced. Listen to us, Gina.
Cyd was standing on my doorstep holding a takeaway container.
‘Is this a bad time?’
‘No, it’s not a bad time. Come in.’
She came into my home, handing me the container.
‘For Pat. Spaghetti pesto.’
‘Green spaghetti. His favourite. Thank you.’
‘You just need to put it in the microwave. Can you do that?’
‘Are you kidding? Even I know how to use a microwave. One minute or two?’
‘One ought to do it. Is he awake?’
‘He’s watching some TV. Just for a change.’
Pat