Silver Bream – a short story

I love fish. I’m a Pisces, see. I love all kinds of fish - battered, fried, grilled. I love seafood too. I see food, I eat it. That’s a joke. You’re supposed to laugh.

I love fishing too, for Mackerel when I’m in Wales with Mum, or for Bream like I used to with Dad. Dad’s not with us any more, he got eaten by a shark. No he didn’t. That’s another joke. I love jokes, especially fish ones. How do you get to Wales in a mini? One in the front, one in the….you know it don’t you? Everyone knows that one. It’s a groaner. You can groan if you like.  Not inwardly, outwardly, make a noise. You won’t though will you? You’re grown ups.

I hate it when grown ups pretend to do things, like when they pretend to laugh and go “ha, ha, ha”. That’s not a proper laugh, that’s an “oh how very amusing, how absolutely funny, oh yes how witty” kind of laugh. Mr Watkins, our headmaster, is like that. He never laughs at anything, he’s a miserable bastard actually. He looks like a dead pike, all grey and wet and beady eyed - and scaly.

He’s always on my case. Take last Monday, for instance. We had a Cup match against Arnold Hill who are top of the league. We’re third so it was a crunch game. I’m centre forward, the top scorer.  I had a dream the night before that I would score a hat trick so I knew we’d win. My dreams are like witchy premonitions, they always come true. I dreamt my Dad was going to leave us and live with Aunty Carol and sure enough the next day there was a note where he would have been having his tea  - “Dear Michael, one day you’ll understand why I’ve done this. I love you son. Keep fishing and scoring goals. I’ll always be with you”. That was last January and he hasn’t taken me fishing since. He’s gone like Mr Watkins, all grey and scaly. He came on my birthday for twenty minutes wearing a suit. It’s Aunty Carol’s fault, she’s made him like a robot, a career robot. All he does is work overtime at the office. He may as well sleep in that suit, at least he won’t have to get dressed in the morning.

Anyway, back to last Monday, to Mr Watkins, and the football match, and the fish. I haven’t mentioned the fish before but that’s how it started, with a fish, a silver bream actually. Dad caught it ages ago and we put it in the freezer. I took it in for Art, I was going to do a Still Life of it, until Billy Mason started playing football with it at morning break. By the time it was rescued, it only had a head and one eyeball left.

When I picked it up everyone screamed. That gave me an idea. I put it next to my face so it looked like I had a fish face and tried to kiss people with it. I tried to kiss Laura Diprose. Thing is, I want to kiss Laura Diprose anyway so the fish was a good excuse. If I could get a fish kiss, chances were next time I’d get a human kiss. Anyway, she totally freaked out and ran to Watkins. He came into the playground all arms and legs and baggy suit shouting in my eardrums: “Michael Jenkins I want a word with you?”

I was too busy fish kissing these first years, I didn’t see him come behind me and grab me in a headlock. I had the flight or fight instinct at that moment, like me and Dad saw on David Attenborough, only I couldn’t do the flight bit due to the headlock situation, so I went for the fight option. I thought I was punching Watkins with my fist but I was holding the fish head. By the time I’d finished smacking his face with a silver bream he looked like he’dbeen eaten by a shark. He had blood and scales and the eyeball all over his beardy face. It looked brilliant. Everyone was laughing. Actually I was laughing, no one else, they couldn’t believe I’d beaten up the headmaster with a fish. I think it was a first in the history of Lady Bay Junior School.

I got sent home at lunchtime and banned from the match. We lost three – nil. No one scored a single goal let alone a hat trick. Watkins had to go for a tetanus jab in case he caught salmonella, which is weird ‘cause it was a bream not a salmon. My Mum grounded me for a week, but I got to see Dad for the first time since my birthday. Mum let him come round because it was in the paper and he was worried about me. He thought I’d become a juvenile delinquent as a result of my home being broken.

He came on Sunday and asked me what I wanted to do. Fishing, I said, silver bream fishing. We caught three but threw them back. Dad said it was safer that way; I wouldn’t be tempted to attack any more unsuspecting grown-ups with a fish face. He asked me to tell him exactly what happened. I think he was worried I’d done it without provocation. He relaxed when I mentioned the headlock – apart from wanting to punch Mr Watkins. I told him about Watkins’ face, with scales stuck to his beard and his three eyes, two human and one fish, and we started giggling. We couldn’t stop, we were really laughing, not in that “ha, ha, ha” grown up way I was telling you about, but like a couple of naughty boys. We were wetting ourselves, I actually had to take a piss and Dad had tears streaming down his chubby Dad face. He looked hilarious. Not as funny as Mr Watkins, but still flippin’ funny, he made me laugh even more just looking at him.

When we pulled ourselves together, Dad said he wanted to take me next Sunday too, so all in all everything turned out pretty well. I didn’t score a hat trick but I got to see my Dad crying with laughter and that was the best feeling, the best.

Flash Fiction - Two alternatives - which is better?

Bullseye   (Flash Fiction 250 words) 

 In 1987 I donated sperm for cash. They gave you a magazine and you aimed into a plastic jar. Ten quid a shot. I used a cassette cover of Carly Simon, in a cheesecloth with a bow tied at her navel. Three dud samples and they told me not to come again.

We would have split up anyway, after Mum died last year. I lost my confidence. Then Dad fell down the stairs, and while I was away Jane invited the new PE teacher back to our place. It’s now my place. Before I moved schools, I saw them every day at staff meetings, holding hands like a vitamin advert. I’ve come to stay with Dad for half-term, to recuperate. He was in bed when I arrived so I played on his PC  until the small hours.

My phone’s just beeped. A text, from Jane, fantastic. She hasn’t been in touch since 2009:  Don’t ever contact me again. That’s from last night. There’s a new photo on her Facebook, she looks pretty far gone. I left a witty comment, something like “Who’s the daddy?”

It’s her fortieth today, and she’s pregnant, which is brilliant. I wouldn’t be surprised if she conceived in our bed. A year of firing blanks, a new donor, then “bullseye” first go. I’m really happy for her, I know how much she wanted it. I’ll text her, ask her to wet the baby’s head for me. Maybe she’ll let me be there at the birth?

Bulls Eye  – Flash Fiction 250 words

In 1987 I tried sperm doning for cash. They gave you a magazine and you aimed into a plastic jar. I used a cassette cover of Carly Simon, in a cheesecloth with a bow tied at her navel. Three dud samples and they told me not to come back.

We would have split up anyway, after Mum died. I lost my confidence. Then Dad fell down the stairs, and while I was away Jane invited the new PE teacher back to our place. It’s now my place. Before I moved schools, I saw them every day at staff meetings, holding hands like a vitamin advert. I’ve come to stay with Dad for half-term, to recuperate. He was asleep when I arrived so I fiddled on my Mac into the small hours.

My phone’s just beeped. A text, from Jane, fantastic. She hasn’t contacted me since 2009: I’ve blocked you from my friends. Don’t ever contact me again.

That’s a bit harsh. It’ll be from last night. There’s a new photo on her Facebook, she looks pretty far gone. I left a witty comment, something like “Whose the daddy?”

It’s her fortieth today, and she’s pregnant, which is brilliant. I wouldn’t be surprised if she conceived in our bed. A year of firing blanks, a new donor, then “bulls-eye” first shot. I’m really happy for her, I know how much she wanted it. I’ll text her, ask her to wet the baby’s head for me, or is that a tad premature? 

SHORT STORY- NEW (GRANITE)

Granite 

“We need to stop now,” I said. Dad’s leg was playing up.

“It’s a twelve mile hike,” he said.

 “You’re not seriously going to limp across the Lake District in the dark?”

“Shut up, Tom,” he said. So I did.

An hour later we stopped. Dad was breathing heavily. He ran the Combined Services Cross Country in 1953, but the days when he could do a four-minute mile were long gone. He had difficulty climbing stairs now.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” I said.

“Give us the bloody rucksack, Tom.”

“Aren’t we, Dad?”

“Just pass it here.”

He put down his metal walking stick. I passed the rucksack containing the tent, the sleeping bags, the Primus stove, the cooking tins, the baked beans, the Kendal Mint Cake.  He took out a torch from a side compartment.

“Give me the compass,” he said.

“What compass?”

“The one in your pocket.”

“You mean the one in my pocket that isn’t in my pocket?”

“The one I gave you.”

“You didn’t give me a sodding compass.”

“Well I meant to.”

Alzheimer’s as well as a dodgy leg.

“So no compass, no natural light, no idea - what’s the plan Stan?”

Dad wasn’t called Stan; he was called Peter. I was winding him up.

“Don’t be facetious,” he said.

 “I’m not,” I said.  It was starting to rain.

 “I suggest we keep going,” he said.

He put up his hood, tied the string so his glasses poked through like a periscope, and shone the torch.

 “You carry the rucksack then,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I can’t, we agreed. ”

He dug his stick into the terrain, and forged ahead. I overtook, turned to face him.

“If we’re going on you’re carrying it, my back’s knackered,” I said.

“Don’t swear,” he said, stepping up the hill to pass me.

“And your leg’s buggered,” I said, sidestepping to block him.

He stopped, waited for me to give way, and when I didn’t, shone the torch in my face and said: “Give it here.”

Two grown men squaring up in a national park: If I thought we’d see other hikers I’d have let it go, but no one in their right mind would have been halfway up a mountain, after dark, on a wet Saturday in June. They were all tucked up in bed, probably, or wrapped in their summer jumpers, legs entwined on the sofa.

Dad struggled with the rucksack. I was certain he’d give up so we could pitch the tent, but he tightened the straps and set off. About two steps. Maybe one and a half.  He fell hard on the granite. Cracked his head. Adrenalin leaked through my body.  There was blood on his face. Was it a nosebleed, a cut head, where was the blood coming from? I cradled him. His glasses were skewed. I was frightened he’d fall apart if I let go. “There’s first aid in the left compartment,” he whispered. I fumbled with the green tin. “This from your National Service?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I untied the hood, dabbed at his forehead with cotton wool, and found a one-inch gash. It needed stitches. For now I applied antiseptic and a plaster, while his body shivered in my arms. I sat him next to his stick, put the tent up, and rolled out the sleeping bags. He insisted on setting up the Primus to boil water for tea, said he felt better. We drank it inside the tent, the torch resting on ‘My Father the Hero,’ a birthday book I’d bought him from Amazon. Rain spotted the canvas.

 ‘Nice tea,’ I said. It tasted like wet sugar.

‘It ‘s not bad, is it?’ He sat on a groundsheet, nursing the enamel mug, dried blood stuck to stray bits of werewolf hair above his beard line, the pock-marked, bulbous nose belying his teetotal disposition. After tea the rain stopped and we climbed into our sleeping bags. Dad started to snore. I dreamt of shoving my sleeping bag right down his throat, dumping his body in Coniston Water, running away to a life of luxury.

The next morning I woke to the smell of gas, unzipped the tent, and there he was minding the Primus like a war invalid, green anorak, khaki trousers, bandaged head. He handed me a mug of baked beans.

“I made a tourniquet, should do the trick, and I’ve checked the Map. I reckon we’re nine miles short of the summit,” he said.

“We’re not going Dad, we need to get you to hospital.”

“Don’t be dramatic Tom, it’s just a scratch”

“Seriously Dad, it could be infected”

“This hike is my treat and I intend to honour it,” he said.

“And you need to test for concussion,” I persisted.

“Rubbish”, he said, packing the Primus. I put down the beans and unpegged the guy ropes. “I’ll finish those if you’re done with them,” he said, pulling a spoon from his three-in-one cutlery set. I passed him the cold beans.

“Remember when I took you to Grasmere? You were ten I think,” he said.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“You wet the bed at the youth hostel, couldn’t find the toilet, climbed into the wrong bunk and pissed in it.”

“I can’t have done, “ I said. “I stopped wetting the bed when I was eight.”

“ ‘This bed isn’t even made,’ you shouted, at the top of your voice, woke the whole hostel. I picked you up, wiped you down with a towel, and put you back in the right bunk.”

He must have taken me on at least a dozen hikes before I hit big school. I don’t know why I forgot. All I remember was my heart thumping when he came home from work. The footsteps on the stairs, the cuff when he caught me watching telly instead of doing homework, the night he threw my A-level geography file against the wall and broke the spine because I said he couldn’t cook. That’s when I hit him. His cheek burst like a ripe peach. He told the office he walked into a tree.

Sunday was milder, with a light breeze to take the edge off. The nerves in his leg were better for the rest and, jabbing his stick hard into the ground like a cross-country skier, he kept up a brisk pace. After six miles we sat by a stream. He took off his anorak to sit on, rolled up his shirtsleeves. He’d undone the top button and there were droplets of sweat on his loose neck skin. I handed out the mint cake while he sang ‘Donna Nobis Pacem’ in a shaky baritone. He’d learnt it at the ‘Cambridge University Congregational Society,’ where Mum and he first met, before ‘The Female Eunuch’ took her on a different path. We sang it during car journeys, Mum and Dad sharing the driving, me lying on the back seat.

Mum died at Easter. She was seventy-eight so she’d had a good innings. I didn’t see her die, I saw her dead, mouth open like a Goya painting. I didn’t cope well afterwards, which put a strain on my marriage. When Jane moved in with the head of department, I left my English teaching post and went to stay with Dad, to recuperate.

Cloud drifted over the sun. I wrapped the mint cake and tucked it in the pocket with the first aid. Dad zipped his anorak, put on his leather gloves.

“Give me the rucksack,” he said.

“What for?” I said.

“I want to take it on the last leg,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I won’t allow it,” I said, grabbing the rucksack.

He hooked a stray strap with his stick.

 “Let go, Tom,” he said, grabbing the strap with his free hand.

“No, you let go,” I shouted, pulling my strap in the opposite direction. The rucksack swayed between us while we fought a clumsy ‘tug of war.’ Dad was thrown from side to side, feet barely scraping the ground, like a child arm-swung by mummy.

“Let go or you’ll pull the straps off,” he shouted. I dragged him down the hill. He stabbed his stick into the grass to stop the momentum. I held on, determined not to give in, until he let go, propelling me into the stream, rucksack and all.

“That’ll serve you right,” he said.

I pulled out a sweater to dry myself, and helped him on with the damp rucksack. For the next couple of miles we walked in silence. As the sun set behind the valley, we could see the summit in the distance. I began to talk about Mum’s funeral, about fetching extra chairs from the scout hut, about the Mayor in his gold chain, about Dad singing “Let it Be” when they carried the coffin. A little further on he started whistling the tune to himself. I joined in with the words while he harmonized a third above. We finished the chorus on top of Scafell Pike.

“I can’t see anything,” I said.

“I can,” he said.

“You can’t, Dad, you’ve got cataracts,” I said.

“I’m glad we kept going,” he said.

 I was trying to see our car in the car park.

“Let’s have a hug, son,” he said, and opened his arms, stick dangling from the wrist strap. He looked awkward, with the Army Surplus rucksack dwarfing his frame. I moved towards him, more out of filial duty than anything else. At that moment his leg buckled, like one of those foldaway bikes commuters bring on the tube. The rucksack pulled his weight forwards, so he fell on me and we ended up scrabbling on the granite.

“We’re like a pair of hippies, having sex on a mountain,” I said.

“Shut up,” he said. I wrapped my arms around him, they met at the elbows. I was surprised how narrow he was inside the anorak. Tears dripped on my face. He wiped them with his leather hands, like a Daddy bear. The glove smell reminded me of Cortina holidays to Wales with Mum and the Greenwoods. We used to play football on top of hay bales until our legs prickled red raw. I lifted him off and we put the tent up together. Too tired, we fell asleep.

I was the first to wake. In silence, apart from the birds. The sun warmed the tent. I didn’t want to turn my head towards his sleeping bag. He should have been outside making tea, or beans, on the Primus. That’s how I knew. I switched on my phone and walked to the valley until I got a reception. They took him away in a helicopter, still in his sleeping bag, hooking him on a stretcher, and lifting him into the sky. 

Comfort Zone - The Not Quite True Confessions of a Sex Addict

Chapter One

I’m trying to pick up my pint without shaking, trying not to bang the tiny table with the knee that’s attached to my tapping foot. I still spill a bit, and bang the table, but I’ve got excess adrenalin, I can’t help it.

I hate Sundays. I know it’s Mondays you're not supposed to like. If you're old enough to know Bob Geldoff, pre-Peaches, when he sang in pajamas with the Boomtown Rats. That was in 1979, so you'd have to be at least forty to know that, and now you know how old I am. I come across much younger, which is why I knock a few years off when I write my profile on dating sites. That’s how I met Julie. She’s thirty. There were a few teething problems at the beginning. The “when shall I confess to being forty four” one, but after three bottles of wine I got away with minor bruising. Then I had to clear up the debris of the “scatter gun” approach to online dating. I had ten days left on my subscription, so I saw the last fifteen dates in hourly shifts at a Starbucks on the Southbank. None came close to Julie in sex appeal, 'gsoh', or clear skin, so all's well that ends well.

Actually it didn't end well. After three practice break-ups, Julie left me for good two months ago, but we’re still friends. Sometimes we meet for a drink, sometimes a bite to eat, and once even a shag. Perhaps this is my lucky day.

'I'm pregnant'

Julie walks in the pub, sits down, and says it, straight out, no frills, no lead up. She does the taking her jacket off bit during the equally pregnant pause that follows.

'How do you know?'

'Because I did a test, two in fact, and my body already feels different, and I have a metallic taste in my mouth'

'But I took it out'

'What?'

I’ve lowered my voice for the sake of privacy

 'I took it out and came on your back'

'Is that all you can say?'

'Are you shagging someone else?'

'Of course I'm not shagging someone else, I wasn't even shagging you, at least I shouldn't have'

She looks beaten for a moment, and it occurs to me that the age difference might work after all. When we started dating we looked like father and daughter but three break-ups and one pregnancy later she's catching up.

'If you'd used a condom like normal people, we'd be having a normal Sunday, not doing a scene from "East Enders"' 

'I hate East Enders - I was in it once - I played a pair of eyes looking through a letter box'

‘Why are we talking about your acting career Tom?'

There's a space for me to apologise but I’m cooler than that. Julie asks another question.

'What are we going to do?' 

'We're going to have a child, that's what we're going to do. This is wonderful. We need to celebrate. I'll get some champagne.' 

I fumble in my G-Star jacket for my wallet, open the back where the notes are kept, close it, put it back in the pocket

'Maybe we could share a glass I'm a bit strapped at the moment'

'This is why we can't have it Tom, you have no money, you have no job, you're depressed most of the time, you can be lovely sometimes, but mostly you're a mess'

'There was one positive in there - that's a start'

Julie stands up, takes her jacket, sits down again: 'Maybe I will have a drink, but a white wine, no bubbles, not even cheap ones'

I’m a man with a mission now, I order the drinks, fish about for some coins, I’ve got about thirteen pounds in loose change so I order some chips as well - splash out, why not? It's not often you get handed a baby on a plate. Back at the table Julie starts the grown up conversation and I follow. She explains how she isn't ready yet, she's still finding her feet in London, she was thinking more five years down the line with a man a little more solvent, a little more secure, not necessarily younger, just better. She didn't say better, actually, she said ‘more happy in his own skin’. I say it's been a difficult time and I've taken it out on you. Maybe this is the cement we need to build the relationship. She says she still loves me, cares about me, but doesn't trust me.

 'What do you mean?'

'Where were you last night?'

'What do you mean?'

'You said you'd meet me. I waited, I texted, I called, I emailed, I was really worried about you, I rang your landline, I rang your mobile, you hung up, you switched your phone off - were you sleeping with someone?'  

 ‘Of course not, I went to a drinks party, got hammered. I'm really sorry, it's unforgivable and I won't do anything like that again. Especially now we're having a baby’

There is a natural pause, while we consider the enormous responsibility of bringing up a family. Julie speaks first: ‘You see I don't believe you. I know you were sleeping with someone, and the fact that you can sit there denying it means I can't trust you and I never will, which is why I can't have this baby. When I’m ready I want my child to have a stable father, when I'm ready. Goodbye Tom, I hope she was worth it’

Julie puts her jacket on and walks out of the pub, bumping into the bloke carrying my chips.  She doesn't look back. If she did she would see me looking at her sexy leather back, willing her to turn round, to smile at me, to wave at me, which is what she’s done every single time she's said goodbye, until today. It's how I know she still loves me, and that's all that matters. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she has too many things on her mind.

I’m mixing the grape and the grain now. She’s left me holding the baby while London Lite’s gastro pub of the year heaves with twenty-something lawyers and bankers. I’m between a ponytail in a pink pashmina and a relic from a boy band. The boy band is chatting up the ponytail. My chips are cold but I’m coating them in mayo and washing them down with Pinot Grigio. It's the first week of December and there's a Christmas selection playing. George Michael is singing about giving it to someone special.

I should text Julie, we didn't finish our discussion, I'll cycle over. I'll finish this one and pop round, we need to talk properly, and it'll be easier once we've had sex, we'll be more relaxed. I take out my mobile, send a message –‘Sory bout earlier. Comin round in 15. Don’t wory lovly everythin wil b OK X.’ There’s message already waiting in my inbox: ‘How r u this mornin BIG boy? Saffron’ (then there's a smiley face).

I can't deal with this now. I need to stay focused. I need to sort out me and Julie and the baby thing, and I need to forget about Saffron, so I need Saffron not to text me any more. I need to be firm about that. I send a message - ‘Hi Safron, sory not to be in touch, wil ring latr’ - That'll nip it in the bud - ‘ps I had a lot of fun.’ A text comes straight back:‘Fancy a repeat later? Come round about 9, bring some alcohol, and your sexy bod. 17a Primrose Hill Xx’

I pick up my blue charity shop rucksack, take out a mini A to Z, find the right page and turn the corner over, popping it into my back pocket. I park my bike a hundred yards up the road on Clapham High Street, take out a credit card, and walk into Threshers. There’s a beep in my top jacket pocket, a rush of adrenalin. It’s a message from Julie. I don’t open it. Lifting my arse off the seat for more pedal power, I set off on a three mile cycle ride.

                                                           * * *

“Tie me up”

I’m standing over her, with my Paul Smith silk scarf, the one I found draped over a railing after a night in King’s Cross. There are three pairs of coloured pop socks lying on the bed, next to Saffron’s pink white body. The bed is wrought iron, the kind you get from Camden Market. The sheets are crisp cotton, the kind you get from The White Company. She’s skin naked apart from a pair of socks.

“Tie me up and fuck me hard, really really hard”

“No pressure then”

“Yes lots of pressure, tie me as tight as you can, so my arms go red and you stop the circulation”

I’m tying her hands to the iron bars at the bed head. It’s really hard to do this, the pop socks are tiny and I can’t get much purchase, they keep popping back into my eye, and one of them rips at the heel. She’s shaved her armpits and her pubic hair, she’s very pale, her nipples are pink and her full breasts don’t fit with her boy hips. There’s a small scar on her stomach near her pierced belly button.

“Keep my socks on, my feet are cold." I’m not surprised, I’ve stopped the blood supply at her ankles. I’m tying her feet now. Her legs are thin, her feet are small, like her hands.

“Tighter Tommy baby, tighter. Flick me with your scarf.”

If Paul Smith could see me now.

“Now fuck me”

I climb on top of her like an elephant mounting an ant.

“Yes, like that. Fuck me like that”

She’s screaming now, I think it’s pleasure not pain. I hope so.

There’s a sound behind me, then a squeaky noise. Is Saffron having an orgasm? Her pupils have gone up into her eyeballs, she looks like a baby alien. Something’s pulling my arm. There’s a toddler in pajamas clutching an alopecia teddy.

“Go back to bed darling”, Saffron’s eyes are back to normal. I stumble off the bed, stubbing my toe on the iron post, banging my knee on the metal base.

“Cuddle mummy, cuddle.”

“Of course darling. Tom can you untie me please?”

Darling is trying to get on the bed. Mummy is trying to wriggle free. My jeans are one leg in, one leg out. The bow is now a knot. I’m using my teeth. This would be really sexy if there wasn’t a three year old watching. I have to get out of here. My girlfriend’s pregnant. Julie’s right. I’m not fit to be a father. I’m not fit to lick Julie’s leather boots.

“You don’t have to go Tommy. We can read Molly a story and then get back to what we were doing”

“Yes a story. Let’s have Fantastic Mr Fox”

“I’d love to Molly. Another time. I’ve got a sore throat and I left my glasses at home”

“Silly Tommy”

Yes silly Tommy. Silly silly silly Tommy. I’m saying this out loud freewheeling down Primrose Hill, dodging the taxis.

“Get some bloody lights you wanker”

He’s right, Mister Taxi man. I am a wanker. When I get home I’m going to give myself a massive talking to, and then I’m going to look at that text from Julie, and then I’m going to have a cup of tea.

Chapter Two

I just swapped numbers with someone I met at a commercial casting a year ago but the number’s useless without the name and I didn’t listen when she told me, I was too nervous. I can't go back and ask again, that's not impressive, so I'm standing outside Virgin Trains’ curvy toilet racking my brains – ‘Kate. That's it. Kate Nicholson, heart on her sleeve, passion for life, Kate. Or is it Susie?’

The man in the disabled seat is eavesdropping. He isn't disabled but the seat has more leg room. The previous occupant makes a fragrant exit so I slip inside as the door closes. It’s like a Woody Allen set for Sleeper, all white plastic and flashing lights. Over by the sink are two buttons with neon lights dotted around them. I press the “closed” button, the door opens. I press again, the door closes.  I press the locked button, the lights go off. I pull my pants down, and settle into Year of the American Cock, making sure my english cock is pointing into the bowl. That’s when the door opens. A lady in red, appalled at what she has brought into public view, paws the outside wall for a button to kill her frankenstein. The man in the disabled seat wears a deadpan expression matching his pin-stripe. There's a lot going on for him, at arm’s length from a bare arse, but he doesn't flinch. The door closes. I consider a royal wave, press the 'locked' button and return to my reading.

“Nottingham, this is Nottingham. Please make sure you have all your belongings with you on alighting from the train. Nottingham is your next stop.” I'm still reading when the station announcement comes on so I leave without washing my hands. Into my ‘Muji’ briefcase I pack an ipod, a wallet, a glasses case. The glasses aren't in the case, but that's okay because I'm wearing them. “Where's my rucksack?” I have to push through three corridors to get it. I know I'm pissing people off but I don't have time to think about that, and anyway it isn't my fault. I was moved to an unreserved seat. 

“Sorry can I just? Thanks. Sorry. Bit of an emergency.” I pull at the dangling strap of the huge Karrimor, which couldn't carry more, and it hits the freshly permed head of a lady in my original seat. I check my belongings again. Computer - check - must get a cover for it, Ipod - check, glasses case, glasses on nose - check, wallet, oyster card, keys - check, where's my train ticket? Where's my train ticket? Back pocket, panic over, calm down Tommy, calm down - shit, there's a man in the way - “I need to get off the train, this is my stop, sorry, can you? Thanks, sorry, thanks.”

I slam the door and the train is off, without any of me left on it. I take the oyster card out of my top pocket, remember I'm not in London, replace it with a train ticket, and walk up the stairs through the unguarded exit. My father waits like a lopsided grandpa. Like the man in the disabled seat, he’s pushing eighty, gives nothing away in his pinkish, deadpan expression, but has a bulbous nose afflicted with a skin condition, and looks scruffier, in a patterned jumper and brown slip-ons. I try to hug him but a combination of bags and filial awkwardness turn it into a pat on the back and a nose rub. Apart from the nerve jangling lane crossings, I'm chauffeured home in relative peace.

“Just taking these bags up won't be long”. Upstairs at the back of the house is my old room. I push the door past the ruck in the carpet Dad fitted thirty years ago. The room is filled with the memorabilia of adolescence: a snare drum, a bass guitar, an amp, two silver cups, three bronze medals, a hockey stick, a life-size african head, table football and a globe. It's like a shrine to a prematurely lost son and has stayed just so ever since I officially left home, though in truth I never have, not really. I flake out on the bed, and as I look up at the peeling ceiling, my face starts to crumple. It goes like this when I listen to stuff on my iPod that reminds me of break-ups. Or when I think of Mum.

I can't work out what it is this time. An unspecific 'what am I doing with my life?' crumple. I've been getting a lot of those lately. Something has to be done about it, I don't know what, but I'm definitely going to make some changes. This will be my last acting job, I’ll try teaching, see if I like it, stay here for six months, rent my flat, live off the left-overs. That's a plan. That’s what I’ll do. 

It’s three and a half years since mum’s funeral. It’s three years and five months since I split up with Siobhan and I’ve been single ever since. Except for Julie, and that was only three months not counting the mercy shag.  Julie blames me for the break up. She says I’m still fixated on Siobhan, that I can’t be on my own, says she could be anyone. That’s not true. She says I can’t make a decision to save my life. That is true. I haven’t made a proper decision about anything for three and a half years, and now she’s pregnant, and pissed off. I’m going to ring her. Surely she can wait a week for me to grow up? I key in the number. My hand's shaking, so I touch a digit twice and have to start again.

“What are we doing for tea?” I hadn’t noticed Dad open the door. There's a trauma brewing, about what to do for tea. I can read the signs. Dad’s tea traumas are almost as bad as my Julie traumas. “I was thinking cheese on toast - but I made some for lunch and that was the last of the cheese.”  For a man with a first class honours degree, He’s remarkably inarticulate. At times like this it's important to remember we can't have a normal conversation. When I’ve worked out the translation, what Dad really said was this  -

Can you go to the chip shop and bring back one portion of fish and chips and although I have said I don’t want any I will eat most of that portion off your plate and I know it’s unbearably frustrating that the simple things in life like having tea are rendered impossibly complicated but I find communicating on a level that involves engagement with another point of view really difficult, and I can’t help it, is that okay?”

By the time I walk through the door with a fish supper for one I've eaten a steak and kidney pie, a battered sausage, a fish cake and a spring roll. I'm still on my last swallow as I enter the kitchen, where my dinner guest is listening to ‘The Archers’, the paper evidence having been deposited in next door’s privet.

After a silent supper, accompanied by an old tape of Humphrey Lyttleton’s jazz requests and half a glass of water, I say ‘that was lovely, thanks for tea’, go upstairs and shut the door. Safe in my cocoon I scroll Julie’s number. This conversation won't need a translation, Julie is the type who calls a spade a spade. She's from York.

“Hi Julie, it’s Tom, look I’m really sorry, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I know it was an accident, well not an accident as such, although I could have sworn I took it out in time, but that’s not why I’m ringing, I’m ringing to say I know I said it before, but I’m willing to give us a proper go this time and I want it to work, I really do, I love you and I want us to have our baby”

I can't be sure at what point in the call she hung up, whether it was the ‘give it a proper go’ bit in the middle or the ‘our baby’ bit at the end or the ‘took it out in time’ bit at the beginning. I know I shouldn’t have said that but I was genuinely shocked when she told me. I've followed the withdrawal method all my life, my one concession to Catholicism, and never been unlucky. In fact, even when I deliberately kept it in, with Siobhan, I was shooting blanks.

Siobhan would have died and gone to heaven if she'd become pregnant. Okay, whether we'd have stayed together is a moot point, but there would have been no question about having it. And now Julie's refusing to speak to me, hanging up the phone. I want a chat, that's all. I'm desperate for a chat. Maybe my biological clock is speaking, maybe the battered sausage is making me queasy, whatever it is, it feels like my last chance. I've run away from two potential marriages and four live-in relationships. I'm the 'could have, should have, would have' man. It's painful to admit, but like the Madness song, I'm an embarrassment.  And now even Suggs has a family.

                                                       

                                                    ****

It’s 9 am, I’ve been lying in bed for about an hour. It’s too cold to get up, the heating isn’t on. I can hear a wood pigeon like the one I heard on school mornings. Once it called all afternoon. I was laid up in bed with flu and mum’s Joy of Sex book. I nicked it while she was at work. It was a toss up with The Female Eunoch, but that didn’t have any pictures, only a sculpture on the front, a pair of nippleless breasts with no arms. They were electing Sports Captains at school that day. I got a phone call from the form tutor when mum got home to say they’d voted me Head of Kestrel House. I’d orgasmed for the eighth time over a line drawing of a hairy brunette, so when Mum came to tell me the news she saw the book and slapped me. She said “don’t you ever go into our bedroom again, ” then she gave me another slap, which was a bit harsh, I thought.

I tended to forgo visual stimulation after that and developed an imagination instead. Like now, for instance, I’m imagining that bit in Gregory’s Girl when he’s on his first date with Clare Grogan and they're lying on the grass looking at the stars and he’s doing a funky chicken dance with his arms and she joins in and it's brilliant. Now I’m at the Hacienda with the Happy Mondays in 1989. I've never been there, I was into Genesis at the time, but Bez won Celebrity Big Brother and I’ve seen 24 Hour party People. Now I’m at a nineties nightclub making shapes, shirt off, to Fat Boy Slim, with five Goths and a rubber freak. I'm a great dancer, I could conquer the world, I could do anything, I could shag Winona Rider, right here, right now, under the covers at 52 Adbolton Grove.

I’m showing off for Winona now, stepping at one hundred and eight beats a minute, slapping her hands in a pattacake styley. I’m doing the pelvic floor exercises I learnt in pilates, only standing up, with a few Tai Chi moves to vary the pace. Now I’m behind her and we’re moving as one in a snakey conga. I’m getting hard, pressing against the small of her back so she lifts her lithe frame upwards, bumping and grinding right where it hurts.

Something is wrong. Winona has morphed into Siobhan, and Siobhan is being shagged from behind by a twenty two year old organic gardener from Cork. I lift my hands out of the covers and take off my Sennheiser’s. This happens all too often these days, this 'wankus interruptus'.

Sometimes I can remember having great sex with Siobhan, like the time we made love on the white sofa, then on the green chaise long, then on the pink poof, then on the Turkish rug, for the whole of Guilty Pleasures II. This memory means the wankus isn’t 'interruptus' at all and quite fantastic, but also tinged with guilt. I'm kind of with Julie now and shouldn’t I be recalling sofa gymnastics with her? Except her sofa is from IKEA and designed more for sitting than wild sex. Perhaps that's a symbol of  our whole relationship. Functional, reliable, safe (well, almost), designed by morally upright Swedes for sitting  morally upright.

Me and Siobhan, on the other hand, crazy Siobhan more like, we would have had sex in an IKEA display wardrobe if I hadn’t broken the door trying to shut us in. Of course I'm making that up, but why not? I love fantasising about Siobhan, and it wasn't as if we hadn't done it in public, like that time in the badminton store at Brixton Rec after a knock up.

Other times my fantasies get corrupted by the pain of her meeting someone else, and not just any someone else, one half her age, living across the border, right by her roots. This new guy is more fertile, probably, has more hair, probably, speaks gaelic, probably, is better in bed, probably. I have no grounds which to base these observations but I can't help feeding my masochism, the more I can twist the knife in, the better. I've been replaying the "I'm sorry I've met someone else" scene every day since Siobhan came back from Ireland a year ago with this gardener boy and left me treading water at Brixton lido.

I'm about to press play again when there's a double beep on my mobile. Shit, it's probably Julie. It'll say 'Please don't contact me,' or 'Please stop hassling me' or  'Please respect my need for space'. I know I'm pushing Julie away with my demands for a second chance, or a third, or however many I've had, but I can't stop himself. I scroll the message - “What you up to later? Meet in Playhouse Bar for a drink?”

I'm looking for the name at the top. It doesn't say Julie but then it wouldn't. She has a new phone and I haven't saved the number in my contacts yet - “From Kate”

Kate? Kate who? Oh that Kate. Kate I bumped into on the  train. Kate I swapped numbers with just in case. I text back - 

“Be great to meet later. I don't get back until midnight is that too late? X”

A text comes back - “We can always go back to my digs if the bar's closed. Text when you get in X”. I reply -  “Cool. See you later. Looking forward”. Looking forward? I sound like a German Banker.  

I’m thinking of that speech from Merchant of Venice where Lancelot Gobbo hears two voices. “Budge' says the fiend. 'Budge not' says my conscience.” I auditioned for Gobbo at the RSC but I’m not that good at accents and I couldn’t separate the voices. I still can’t. Normally with grown-ups, the conscience controls the ‘fiend’ but with me, and Gobbo, it’s the other way round, the fiend, or in my case the groin, controls the conscience. But I can't help it. I want my cake and I want to eat it and now Dad is shouting to come down for breakfast. Cake for breakfast, that's decadent. Like chocolate for breakfast, or champagne, or champagne for any occasion, in a hotel room, with an actress, for a midnight feast. I'm scatting on a theme of casual sex, jumping the stairs four steps at a time. I push open the door to the dining room.

Dad is hunched over the table. It has one flap up, one flap down, and a table cloth on, which I recognise as one my mum used for when both flaps were up. The cloth is far too big and looks ridiculous draped over the spare dining chairs, but Dad doesn't seem to notice. He's reading the Guardian and doing the crossword in G2 at the same time.

“There's milk in the jug I've just made it up.” Dad's eyes focus on the crossword. Has he converted the shed into a micro dairy and grazed a friesian in the back garden?  “I found some Marvel in the larder and thought I'd try it. It's not bad actually.”  I pour the grey, watery stuff on the Co-op muesli and wonder why I always feel like a wartime evacuee with Dad.

“Is there any cake?”

“Don't be ridiculous.” He thinks I’m being facetious. I’m not.

“Is there any proper milk?”

 “Don't you like Marvel?”

“I'm going down the road to get some twenty-first century foodstuffs.”

 “No you are not, you're the guest, I'm going”. He leaves the table. I’m looking for my Timberlands and trying to win the argument at the same time.  “I'm not the guest, I'm the son, and it'll take me five minutes, it'll take you three days, you can barely walk.” Dad lets out one of his snorts which means that my point of view is the most inaccurate statement of facts he is ever likely to hear - “Of course I can walk, I can walk for miles, I was hiking in Derbyshire with Donald last weekend, I'm going for the milk, what's more I'm going on my bike, I'll be back before you have time to make the coffee, and the Nescafe is in the terracotta ceramic marked coffee, and only half a cup please, I won't manage any more, my bladder's not what it used to be.”

He’s in the cloakroom looking for his anorak. I know I won't be able to change his mind and anyway I can't be bothered. It 's better to let him get on with things, the way he wants, it's easier for everybody that way. So I watch the scene unfold as if through a camera lens, like one of those ‘kitchen sink’ dramas from the sixties that gets repeated on Channel Four and segmented on You Tube: ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning', or ‘Kathy Come Home, or ‘Kes’. That's it. I'm watching Kes, the first film he took me to see, only this time he's in it.

I must have been ten but I can still remember how I felt, especially when the boy finds the dead kestrel. I can't work out why I'm reminded of it now, with Dad fumbling about in the shed. It's the boy’s brother who fumbles about in the shed, to kill the kestrel, and he's twenty, Dad's an old man. My brain often works like this, jumbling paradoxical images with a meaning just out of reach.

The manouverings in the shed have taken long enough for me to disappear into my head for several minutes, but the bike has been rescued now. Dad locks the shed, wheels the bike to the front of the house and opens the gate. This is when it happens. He gets tangled trying to climb on and keep the gate open at the same time, loses his balance and falls on his left hip, which is his good leg. It isn't dramatic just awkward, but Dad is in pain and suddenly much, much older.

 Chapter Three

You know when something shocking happens and you press pause, or that button that makes the frames go slowly, so you can remember every detail? It's like you're watching a DVD of your own life and you're the camera, or the director, and you're pointing it wherever you want. I do this when Dad falls of the bike. My movie is set in the Midlands, not Barnsley, in 2009 not 1969, but the pace is more in keeping with Kes, than say The Bourne Ultimatum –

EXTERIOR: The middle of a  quiet suburban road. Close up on father tangled in bike as if animate and inanimate have been cloned into BIKEMAN

Pan out to street. Door opens in the semi opposite. A TALL MAN, sixty, runs to BIKEMAN.

TALL MAN: “This might hurt a little Peter”

TALL MAN takes BIKEMAN apart as he would a washing machine that isn't spinning properly, or an old radio. BIKEMAN winces

BIKEMAN: “Just a little sore, grazed I think. Rain's made the road slippery”

TALLMAN lifts UNBIKEDMAN, (formerly known as BIKEMAN), and carries him back to the house

TALL MAN: “Get the bike Tom”

I’ve detached myself from the situation at the moment Dad needs me most, but I can’t help it. I‘m paralysed by the fear that I might not deliver the goods. I vaguely remember doing first aid at cub scouts but I can't remember getting the badge and having mum sew it on my arm. I was one of those cubs who always looked like they'd just joined because their arms were still jersey green instead of badge coloured.

Most cubs had tons of badges: Knot proficiency, Camping proficiency, Orienteering proficiency, Swimming proficiency, Soccer proficiency. I had the soccer badge. I can remember mum sewing that one on. I would have had Soccer ‘the second best in the team' too, if they'd had a badge for it. They didn’t, nor does soccer proficiency, minus all the "useful in a crisis” proficiencies, cut much ice now Dad's in the middle of the road under a bicycle .

Tall Man has stepped in where I left a space. We'd better call him Brian from now on, since his part's developing. This is typical of Brian, to sieze an opportunity and make the most of it. Mentally younger than sixty, he's retired and is easily bored, despite running the volleyball club, over fifties squash and circus skills for pensioners. In his forties he spent two years working in the States on and off, returning with Chicago Bulls caps for the kids and an evangelical passion for all things stateside for the rest of us. 

This pro-America stance normally annoys me, at least it did when my brother's family came back from Disneyland all wearing 'I Love America' sweatshirts, but with Brian I let it go. He’s easy to be around and easy to like. I want to be like that. For now, I content myself with learning by example, so when Brian pulls Dad's trousers down, I run off in search of dettol and cotton wool.

It's nothing to do with being sqeamish or not wanting to see Dad's pants. I'm finally taking control, so I put the metaphorical camera down and stare at a pair of bloodied y-fronts. For the next few minutes I hand over the medical supplies while Brian cleans the thigh wound and does the bedside manner thing. I make a mental note to ask my agent to put me up for the nurse parts in 'Casualty' and 'Holby', not the doctors.

I wish I could do the first-aid but I can't, it doesn't feel right. It 's safer for the one who isn't family to be doing it. A pep talk with my agent last month pops into my head -

“Have you got kids Tom?”

“Not yet (pause) Thinking about it (pause) Just need to find the right girl (pause) first (pause) and the rest'll sort of follow (pause) on (pause) from that (pause) kind of thing”

“Have 'em Tom, best thing you can do, best thing ever happened to me, even better than working for Westlife”

“Really?”

“Look, if my son was drowning in dangerous water, I'd dive in and save him, even if it meant dying myself. That's how much I love my son, more than I love myself, and you know that's not easy Tom. Think of your income, now go to the other extreme, that's how much I love him”

“Right”

“I never wanted kids, I was too busy enjoying myself, invites to Premieres, backstage at the Oscars, meeting Jack Nicholson, you know the sort of thing”

“Yeah, I sort of know the sort of thing”

“Then little Michael comes along and you can't get me out of the house, changing nappies changed my life, don't regret a single moment. Do it Tommy, do it, you'll never look back”

Truth is I always thought my agent was a bit of a knob but out of the mouths of knobs, and babes, come pearls. If that ego-the-size-of-China can put family before self then so can I. I have to learn to be like Mr Big Shot Agent, and I have to do it now. It's the only way I can stop the shame which is starting to consume me. I can see Brian losing respect for me as a human being, I can see it in his eyes, I'm slipping down the food chain, I have to stop the rot, I can't stand it any more, this self-loathing, so I drop the dettol, and run to the toilet.

Brilliant Tommy. Absolutely brilliant. And for my next trick I'll go AWOL. I'm just going out of the lounge Captain Brian. I may be some time.  Do you think Captain Oats bottled it? If he did he had an excuse, he was dying of frost bite. What's you're excuse mate? Weak bladder? Yes actually it’s hereditary, Dad’s got it as well - where's the toilet paper?

You know the phrase, never leave a sinking ship. It 's the bedrock of Brian's moral code. He can't stand anyone letting the team down. Before they flew the nest, he came down hard on his kids if they didn't set the table, or do the washing up, and he's about to come down harder on me, who has never been one of those kids. I have shagged one of those kids, last christmas eve, but that's another story, for which I am only half to blame. Technically she was an adult, twenty seven to be precise, and it was a blow job not a shag, and consensuaI, and bloody brilliant actually. It's better I keep these details to myself, having been Brian's babysitter back in the day, before life got complicated by hormones. Whenever I see Brian, post blow-job, I am gripped with a 'tourettes'-like desire to confess all, but now is not the time.

'GET BACK HERE.' Brian is shouting through several walls. I always react like a frightened rabbit to a shouted command. It's something I learned when I was younger. Dad struck an imposing figure back then, and it was do what you’re told or get a smack. So here I am back in the room.

 “You've spilt dettol all over the carpet, and I've got to go juggling. Can you take over?” I mop the carpet with a hanky.

“Peter needs to go to A and E for an x-ray. I'm pretty sure he's just bruised, but better to be safe than sorry, can you drive him?” 

 I put the hanky over the stain. “I'd take him myself but they've got nothing to juggle. Can I trust you to sort it?”

Can you? Can you Brian? Can you 'trust' the babysitter who carnally abused your daughter? I don't say this out loud. I stand mute, the 't' word having thrown me into all kinds of panic. I'm not sure I can' trust' myself, so why would anyone else? Besides, I don't have a car here, or at home for that matter, my bike gets me everywhere, and I can't drive Dad's, even if I was insured, I haven't driven for years, not since I wrote off Kirsty's "Fiat".  So whichever way you look at it getting Dad's hip x-ray is not as straightforward as Brian thinks.

“And do him a sandwich for lunch in case he has to wait” As usual, Brian’s thinking outside the box. I'm about to phone my brother but Dad butts in when the sandwich is mentioned, despite the shock and the pain. He has a thing about food - “I don't need lunch, and I don't need an x-ray either, you can both get off now, thank you Brian you've done more than enough, and Tom, you've got a train to catch.”

You think I can't get you to hospital, You think I can't fix you a sandwich, You think I can't do anything, well, that's just where you're wrong Dad. That’s what I want to say. "You're right dad, I've got to go, sure you'll be okay?" is what I do say.

 “He has to have that x-ray Tom. Ring them at work, I'm sure they'll understand.” Brian doesn't understand that 'work' wouldn't understand, and that you turn up for the show unless someone's dying.

“It’s not normal 'work' Brian, it's acting, the show must go on and all that, you can't just not turn up, there are no understudies, at least not for the small parts, just for the big ones, and the small parts are understudying those, so I'm an understudy as well as a small part, which is a double reason why I have to be there, but it's okay Brian I'll get my brother to drive him.”

That's when Dad loses his temper: “Who's 'him', the cat's father? You can both bloody well buzz off, 'scuse my french, and leave me in peace, you're like a pair of old women.”

Brian leaves me and Dad to get on with it. The parental role resumed, I fit back into the parented one and watch from the window as Brian climbs into his Mazda with three boxes of juggling balls. I collect my bags and, with a quick "Bye Dad", run out of the house. I see the bus leaving the terminus a hundred yards away. I break into a sprint. I have to catch it if I'm going to make the next train, and I have to make the next train if I'm not going to be late, which is letting everybody down. The Karrimor is on my back, full of books and skin care products I don't need.  The Muji bag is in my hand, with the computer I do need, to check messages from the dating site. I'm Tom Courtney running from the police in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. I'm the Indian Chief running for freedom in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. I'm Dad running for glory in the Combined Services Cross Country Championships. I'm knackered. None of these runners carried a rucksack, let alone a Japanese briefcase.  I'm like a squaddie from an Andy McNab bestseller, except for the briefcase, with a ton of nonsense on my back. Or maybe I'm a jobbing actor late for my train to Birmingham Rep. I catch the bus by running in front of it all the way to the stop. I thank the driver for slowing down, even though he had no choice, pay the eighty pence fare with a twenty pound note, swing off my rucksack, causing a mexican wave of ducking heads, and check my mobile for any new texts.

The first is from Julie:   “Okay we need to talk, ring me at 2.” My heartbeat increases. The second is from Kate - “See you later, text me when you get here X.” My heartbeat increases. The third is from my brother -“Pop round if you can - how's Dad?”  I notice the screen shaking in my hand. Okay, one thing at a time, prioritise. I have difficulty multi-tasking so my therapist has taught me to deal with each problem separately. I answer the most important text first. I touch "open" next to Julie's number. What shall I say? I can't ring her at two. It's the first day back after the month off and we're all called for a meet and greet. I can't be late. Not again. I've been late for every meet and greet so far, and I'm on a warning. I can't ring her now, I'll start rambling on her answer machine about wanting "our baby", and "sorry for my behaviour on Saturday", "unforgivable", and I'll probably give it away that I was shagging Saffron, or Walden, or whoever.  I press “close”. I’ll listen to some tunes while I have a think and text on the train.  Plenty of time before Birmingham, time for a chill out, I didn’t sleep that well, kept expecting to hear mum and dad shagging next door. It used to be quite comforting back in the day.