Man And Wife

twenty-three

’Viagra,’ Eamon suggested, without me even asking him. ’Just the thing for a man with both a wife and a girlfriend. That’s what you need, Harry. Viagra. Amazing stuff. Although of course you know you’re getting a bit old when you can’t get it down.’

But it wasn’t Viagra that I needed. Because for a man with both a wife and a girlfriend, it was amazing how little sex I was getting.

You might think that my seed would have been spread thin and wide as I bounced from the marital bed to the girlfriend’s futon and back again. But Cyd had moved into the spare bedroom. The world my parents knew had finally turned inside out. For them there was no sex before marriage. For me there was none after.

We had separate rooms because I usually went to bed long after midnight, while suddenly Cyd was tucked up with a camomile tea just after the ten o’clock news. Cyd and I were both blaming work, because it was just too sad to admit that our problems went far deeper than mere scheduling.

Now she had turned down the offer to sell him Food Glorious Food, Cyd’s freelance work with Luke Moore was really taking off. She suddenly had a spate of early-morning breakfast meetings to cater, all these jobs in the City and the West End where businessmen ate croissants, pains au raisin and six kinds of bagel. And while my wife got her early nights, I was often out into the early hours, supervising Eamon’s return to stand-up.

Now that the TV was over, Eamon was going back to his roots, doing stand-up for the first time in years, even some open-mike stuff, and thinking about taking his act on the road. There was no money in it at this stage, and my savings account was steadily shrinking, but we both felt it was the only way back. He performed in small clubs, not much more than basements, where all we had to do was turn up. And I saw that the comedian dreams of stand-up the way the clown yearns to play Hamlet.

This was the heart of his craft, this was where he was truly tested. By nerves, by drunks, by all his limitations. So we spent our nights in sweaty cellars, where he was sometimes good and sometimes not so good but he was always funnier than his hecklers – ’Don’t I remember you from medical school? You were the one in the jar’ – and I wondered if he could really still do it without re-takes, an autocue, a full production crew and the Dutch courage of cocaine.

Eamon’s comeback took up a lot of my time, but in truth not all of it. Sometimes I told Cyd I was seeing Eamon when the person I was really seeing was Kazumi. And when I told her nothing at all, she didn’t seem to care.

I was out late and my wife was out early. And we both knew it was more than work. There were now long calls to her sisters and her mother in the States, as – I was guessing here, but I believed it was a good guess – the possibility of moving back home finally took shape in her mind. Our problem, this problem my wife and I had, was that we just couldn’t imagine our future together. We still loved each other, but there was a politeness and formality to our dealings that broke my heart. And we just couldn’t see how this thing between us was ever going to work out.

’Let’s see how it goes, shall we?’ Cyd said, making up her bed in the guest room.

So we see how it goes. Just another man and wife having trouble. But it seemed like the saddest thing in the world, this feeling that what we had right now was not good enough I to stay for, and not bad enough to leave.

And although there was no sex after marriage, there was none in Primrose Hill in the flat that Kazumi shared with a Swedish woman who was a second-year student at the Royal Academy of Music. It felt like our kiss in the dusk above London had opened a door for me, but now I was faced by a locked gate.

As Kazumi and I lay on her single bed, our clothes on and the curtains drawn, we heard the flatmate practising her cello in the next room. She was so good that the music, just the other side of the wall, was never intrusive. It was strangely soothing to have Chopin and Elgar and Haydn seeping through the thin wall, great swirling sounds of romance, all the passion that felt just out of reach. The flatmate played music that I somehow knew, although I couldn’t say where from, and also things that I had never heard before in my life. One piece that she played again and again – an exam was coming up – turned out to be ’Song Without Words’ by Mendelssohn.

The flatmate could have been studying accountancy or tree surgery, but romance is a series of happy accidents, and the fact that she played the most beautiful music ever written as Kazumi lay chastely in my arms seemed predestined, written in the stars, and made me certain that I was in the right place.

That music would have been the perfect accompaniment to a few hours of passion. But that was not what Kazumi wanted. Kazumi didn’t want to sleep with me. Just like my wife, in fact.

’I don’t want to be your dirty little secret,’ Kazumi said. ’It never works. Afraid to be seen together. Afraid of bumping against someone you know. What kind of life is that? You can call me but I can’t call you. And all the questions I would have to ask you. Such as, do you still have sex with your wife?’

’I can tell you the answer to that now.’

’No.’ She pressed a finger to my lips. ’Because I don’t want you to start lying to me. And even if they leave their wife, it never works. I don’t know why. Price too high, maybe.’

And I was Tom. I wanted to look after both of them. To love both of them. Kazumi and Cyd. In the way that they both deserved. And already I knew that was impossible.

You can love two women at once, but not in the way they deserve.

So I was constantly looking for the exit sign, trying doors, seeking a way out of this chaos. And I did it with Kazumi as well as Cyd. In my mad moments, when it all became too much, and the music stopped, I wanted someone – Cyd, Kazumi, one of them, either of them – to reveal something so painful that it would drive me away, that it would settle things once and forever.

’You seem to know a lot about sex with a married man, Kazumi. How come you’re such an expert?’ ’Doesn’t matter.’ ’I want to know.’ ’Not me. Friend.’ ’A friend. Sure.’ ’Really.’

’So who was this secret friend? Someone here?’

’No. Japan. A close friend in Japan.’

And then the yen finally dropped.

’What was her name, this friend with the married man?’

On the other side of the wall, the sound of a cello pouring out a kind of stately melancholy. ’Song Without Words’ again. The exam must be soon.

’Gina,’ Kazumi said. ’My friend’s name was Gina.’

My doctor thought that I had something called White Coat Syndrome.

’You see a doctor’ – she smiled, her adorable Italian accent adding unexpected vowels to the ends of nouns – ’and your blood pressure goes through the roof-a. ’

She was sort of right. When I first entered her surgery, my systolic pressure was usually around 180 and my diastolic pressure around 95. My doctor made me lie down for ten or fifteen minutes, then took another reading. This was always a vast improvement – around 150 over 90. That was not great, but it meant I was unlikely to have a stroke any time soon. White Coat Syndrome. Well, maybe. I knew it had something to do with my heart. But what my doctor never factored into her diagnosis was that I came to her surgery from home. So when she took my blood pressure, at least part of it was a judgement on my life with my wife – that bleak, stagnated life of separate beds, blended families and an ex-husband who was getting married next week. Of course my blood pressure was sky high. Where else would it be?

When I lay there on the couch for a while, listening to the distant traffic rumble down Harley Street, my mind drifted away to the happier part of my life. The first reading was my life with Cyd. And the second reading was my other life, my secret life, my life with Kazumi.

I knew her now. She was not just a pretty young woman who had caught my eye. I knew about her childhood, the salary man father who drank himself senseless after work, the mother who gave up her dreams of travelling the world for a man who didn’t love her. I knew about Kazumi’s broken marriage, and the courage it took to come to London to start again, and I knew how her face, often seriously dreaming, lost in her thoughts, could suddenly light up with happiness, light up totally without warning, like the old-fashioned lamps on Primrose Hill.

I knew it wasn’t the same as building a real life with someone. It wasn’t the same as dealing with the grind of all the things that can break down – washing machines, boilers, cars, families, marriages – but she was still the sweetest thing in my world, and that was real too, more real than anything. We talked to each other, Kazumi and I. We talked about everything. Apart from my wife, of course. We never talked about her.

’We need to be more aggressive in treating you,’ said my doctor.

She adjusted my prescription. Instead of taking 40 mg of Zestril once a day, I would now take 20 mg of Zestril and 20 mg of Zestoretic.

But in my heart – my mad, pumping, lovesick heart – I felt that for what ailed me now, pills would never be enough.

How many girls and women had I taken home to meet my mum?

It was not every girl I ever took to the pictures, and not every woman I ever took to bed. But, what with the teenage girlfriends and the two wives, we must have been in double figures by now. And as Kazumi and I drove deeper into the suburbs, the urban sprawl finally giving way to the fields of summer, I realised the criteria for bringing a woman to meet my mum had always been the same – this one, this special one, would be the last girl that I ever brought home. Why do we place so much importance on the first? It’s the last one that counts.

At this time in her life, I would like to have spared my mum my latest domestic upheaval. But there was no point in telling her that Kazumi was just a friend.

My mum knew that for a man whose marriage was in trouble, there was no such thing.

The old house on a Sunday afternoon.

Pat let us in, smiling at Kazumi, not quite able to work out what she was doing here. In the living room my mum was i sitting on the carpet, rotating her shoulders with a look of quiet; concentration on her face. She got up, a little embarrassed to be discovered like this, but kissed Kazumi as if she had known her forever. i

’Hello, love, just doing my exercises.’

My mother had been through hell, and she acted as if it had been a stroll in the park.

After surgery and radiotherapy, the muscles in her right arm were stiff and tight. She had exercises to control the pain, and different exercises to regain the use of her right arm. She did these exercises with a good grace, never complaining, and I knew now that she was actually tougher than all of us men in her life.

’Two years I have to do them for, sweetheart,’ she told Kazumi. My mum only needed to know you for five seconds before she started calling you love, darling and sweetheart. ’That’s what they told me.’

Kazumi, Pat and I watched my mum run through her exercise programme for our benefit. She demonstrated Shoulder Circling. Hair Brushing. Assisted Lift. Back Scratching. Bent Arm. Proudly tossing out the names of her exercises the way she had once mentioned the Walkin’ Wazi, the Lost in Austin and the Four-Star Boogie.

And I knew that these exercises were the least of it. She would not put this thing behind her with a bit of stretching. Even after the monstrous surgery that was necessary to save her life, she would never really be over this thing. The monitoring, the exercises, the drugs, fear that the cancer would come back

– it was all measured in years.

My mum got pins and needles in her arm, an agonising pain in her chest. And as we had our tea and biscuits, I noticed that she had developed this habit of examining her hand.

Some of the lymph nodes under her arm had been removed, and my mum had been told that this could cause lymphoedema

– a build-up of fluid in the tissues of her arm. She had been told to watch out for swelling on the affected side, her right side, and she watched all the time. Perhaps she would always watch now. Every few minutes or so, she examined her hand, looking for signs of the beginning of the end.

Chemotherapy had left her feeling as though she had the worst hangover in the world, a hangover that would not get better. Mercifully her hair did not fall out. Radiotherapy left her tired and sore, feeling like she had fallen asleep in a burning sun. She laughed about things that would have grown men me, for example – weeping in a darkened room.

’I was looking forward to my hair falling out,’ she said, smiling mischievously. ’I could have worn my Dolly Parton wig.’

Pat laughed appreciatively. He didn’t understand too much of this, even though my mum and I had both pored over every word in the leaflet Talking with Your Children about Breast Cancer. (If you are able to talk honestly and openly with your family at each step, you will hopefully find that families can be a great source °f love and support^) But he knew the signals that indicated a joke was being made – the breezy tilt in the voice, the raised eyebrows, the rolled eyes – and he was always delighted to respond enthusiastically.

I found it much harder to smile, because I knew my son would be fully grown before we could say this thing inside my mother was truly beaten. Years and years, it would all take years. The best that could happen would take years. The worst that could happen would be there in a moment.

There were 20 mg of Tamoxifen, a hormone treatment, every day, which made my mum feel like she was having another menopause. She would take it for five years. After two years, perhaps she would no longer have to do exercises. Perhaps. See what the doctors say. Have to wait and see.

And there were still many things she would not talk to me about, things that I had to guess at, to wheedle out of surgeons and her female friends and all those pink and purple leaflets. What my mum would call – women things.

She still couldn’t wear a bra because of the scar, because it was still so raw and sore. This seemed insultingly cruel. Again I was reminded that this cancer seemed sadistically committed to making my mum feel like less of a woman than she was before.

But she dealt with all the indignity, pain and terror without complaint, with the kind of good-natured, mocking pragmatism that she had shown all her life. She went to make more tea, and she smiled at me over Kazumi’s shoulder, raising her eyebrows while giving a little nod. I knew that look. I had seen it when I brought Gina home for the first time. And Cyd, too. That look meant – she’s a smasher.

Kazumi was on the living-room floor with Pat. They had met before, of course, when she took his photograph in Gina’s garden, and I was both happy and worried that my son remembered her so clearly.

Would he mention Kazumi to Gina? Or, worse still, to Cyd? How would I get out of that one? Kazumi was patient and kind, playing with one of his video games, while he regarded her with a kind of delighted curiosity. I feared that my son understood more than I would wish. Not yet eight years old, he was already wise to the ways of the world. Or at least the ways of his old man.

Is this what it would be like for Pat and me at the other end of our lives? In thirty years or so, would I be old and fighting illness, with my son all grown-up and divorced and ready to try again? And when I was fighting for my life, would my adult son still be bringing home some young woman for my approval, acting like he’d never been in love before?

Kazumi was good with Pat. They laughed together, they played together, and although I knew it was unfair to cornpare her to Cyd, who had the permanently thankless role of step-parent, I couldn’t help it. This just felt easier.

Maybe it would have been different if we were living together. No, definitely it would have been different. But as Kazumi and Pat played Nuke Universe Two I dreamed of running off with the pair of them. To Paris or County Kerry or anywhere far from here. I looked at my son with Kazumi and I believed that it was not too late to start again. And as I thought of the infinite kindness in my mother’s face, I also desperately wanted to travel with her, to see some other things while we still could and before it was too late. I wanted to get us all away from this place.

My mum returned with tea and biscuits and I showed her the brochures that I had brought with me. She handled them carefully, as if she had to give them back to their rightful owner.

’Nashville, Mum. The home of country. Listen to this, Mum. We can go together. Pat, too. In one of the holidays. Kazumi, if she’s not busy with her work. A real holiday for you. Listen, Mum: Six million people a year travel to Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music. Enjoy the rhinestone glitter of the Grand Ole Opry, Music Row and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Experience the Nashville Sound of Hank Williams, Patsy dim, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers and Shania Twain. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Mum?’

But my mum was different from me. She didn’t dream of escape. She wanted to stay here.

’Sounds lovely, darling, but I’m happy in my own home.’

She put the brochure down. And I saw that my mum was never going to make it to Nashville. This is where we were so different. Unlike me, my mother didn’t believe that happiness was always somewhere else.

’I like holidays,’ she said to Kazumi. ’My husband and I, we used to go somewhere every year. Cornwall and Dorset when Harry was young. We even went to Norway a few times – I’ve got a brother who settled there after the war, met a lovely girl. I had six brothers, did Harry tell you that?’

Kazumi made suitably impressed noises. She was getting the hang of this very quickly.

Then Spain later, when Harry didn’t want to come with us any more,’ continued my mum. ’But I like it here. Do you know what I mean? I like that feeling you get, that feeling you don’t get on holiday, when you’re away from everything familiar. You know, that feeling you get when you’re part of a family.’

Then my mum looked at her hands, as if admiring her bright-red nail polish, or searching for signs of lymphoedema, or maybe just looking at her wedding ring, a modest band of burnished gold that somehow contained an entire world.

twenty-four

You never saw anyone so happy to be having a baby.

When I came back from running in the park, she was on the stairs, laughing and crying at the same time.

’I’mpregnant,’ she said, like it was the best thing in the world. Then she was in my arms and later, when we had untangled our limbs, and stared at each other, laughing out loud, unable to believe our luck, after all of that she showed me the blue line on the pregnancy test – that thin, blue, indisputable line.

And in the days and weeks ahead, she kept taking more pregnancy tests, looking for that blue line again and again, as if it was too good to be true. Maybe there are other pregnant women whose favourite pastime is taking pregnancy tests, even though they already know the answer, even though they have already had the happy result confirmed dozens of times.

But Gina was the first woman that I ever really knew.

The first woman I lived with, the first woman I married. She found a source of endless wonder in her daily pregnancy tests, and I found a source of wonder in her.

That was almost nine years ago now. The world turned, and kept turning, and not only was my wife now my ex-wife, but she was about to become the ex-wife of another man. They talk about the divorce statistics, and the fluctuating failure rate of the modern marriage, but for my ex-wife and me the rate seemed to be 100 per cent.

That thin blue line represented a little heartbeat inside her, and that glimmer of life was now a boy, almost eight years old, changing every week, growing teeth that would have to last him until his dying day, and this life he was leading – bouncing from one home to another, one school to another, one country to another, seeing marriages crumble, learning that the adult world was fragile and weak and fallible – seemed to be robbing him of his – well, I don’t know what you would call it.

Robbing him of his halo of innocence. The aura of light that was all around him as a little boy, the light that made strangers stop and smile at him in the street.

Pat is still a boy in a million. He still shines. To me he still looks like the most beautiful child in the world. But this life has robbed him of that angel glow. It has gone, and it will never come back, and while it is possible that we all lose that angel glow in the end, I can’t help feeling that Gina and I who held that very first pregnancy test as if it was as precious as our baby himself – share most of the blame. We could have done better for our boy. But Gina’s mood was such that right now she blamed her latest ex-husband for everything.

’Easter, right? Shouldn’t be a problem, should it? You would think that Easter doesn’t present too many possibilities for domestic strife.’

We were in the tiny kitchen of her flat, drinking some jasmine tea. This love of Japan, this yearning for the life she had given up for marriage and me and Pat – she was never going to grow out of it now, she was never going to stop missing that life she had never known.

’But Richard objected to the Easter egg that I bought Pat. Can you believe it?’

Pat appeared in the doorway.

’Can I watch The Phantom Menace on DVD?’ This to Gina.

’No, you’re going out with your father.’

’Just some of the special features. A few of the deleted scenes. The interview with the director. Production notes.’

’Go on then.’ Pat disappeared. Stirring orchestral music swelled from the living room. ’This Easter egg I bought it was bloody lovely, Harry. Milk chocolate and covered with little hearts in red icing. A big purple bow around it. And Richard – get this – said it was the kind of egg you buy for a lover, not a child. For a lover! An Easter egg for a lover! That’s what he said! He said it was the kind of egg you buy for your husband or wife. I mean, can you believe the pettiness of the man? As if I can’t buy my son whatever Easter egg I bloody well like…”

’Are you talking to him?’

She smiled. ’You’ve heard of the old cow syndrome?’

’Don’t think so.’

’When a bull has mated with a cow once, he’s not interested any more. Doesn’t matter if the cow is really cute. The bull couldn’t care less. It’s called the old cow syndrome.’

’Is that true?’

She nodded. ’Once is enough for the bull. No matter how attractive the cow is, he’s just not interested. Well, it works the other way around for this old cow. When I’ve finished with them, I’ve finished with them.’

She made me laugh. I could hear the bitterness in her voice, and I knew that this new life was hard for her too. Because it was hard for any single parent. And – incredibly, it seemed to me that’s what Gina was now. She was angry, sour and sad. But I felt an enormous affection for this woman who had once been closer to me than anyone in the world. A woman who would almost certainly be my best friend if we hadn’t ruined it by getting married.

And for the first time I started to think that our marriage hadn’t been a failure. Not really. We could have done better for Pat. We could have been kinder to each other. All this was true. But we were together for seven years, we produced a sweet, caring kid whose existence will make this world a better place, and we could still talk to each other. Most of the time. When she was not being an old cow and I was not full of too much old bull. So who is to say that our marriage failed? A few good years and a great kid – maybe that’s the best anyone can hope for.

Gina and I had been through the mill, and we could still sit in a room together, drinking jasmine tea while she bitched about her future ex-husband. Deep in our history, Gina and I had something that Cyd and I lacked.

It went back to that blue line.

It went back to that day I came home from running in the park and, through laughter and tears, Gina told me that she was having our baby.

We had missed that, Cyd and I, the hope and joy and optimism that Gina saw in that blue line, that thin blue line leading to all our tomorrows, and our stake in the future.

’Ah, sure, there’s nothing like it,’ Eamon said. ’To love pure and chaste from afar. Nothing like it – except, perhaps, wild unprotected sex as you take her roughly from behind. Sure, that’s even slightly better.’

I was beginning to wish that I had lied. I was beginning to wish that I had never told him that Kazumi and I hadn’t consummated our relationship.

’She understands me.’ It was true. Kazumi knew what I was going through with my mum. And my son. Even, although we didn’t like to put it into so many words, with my wife.

’She understands you too well, Harry.’ Eamon took a slug of his mineral water, ran a hand through his thick black locks. ’She’s playing you, man. Don’t be fooled by that sweet act. All that hello-flowers, hello-sky stuff

’Hello-flowers, hello-sky?’

’Kazumi understands that when a man gets what he wants, he never wants it again.’

We were in Eamon’s dressing room in a comedy club in the East End. The dressing room was more of a broom cupboard compared with what we were used to in television, and the club was actually an old-fashioned, pints-and-pork-scratchings, tobacco-stained pub that had belatedly tried to hitch a ride on the comedy bandwagon.

It was not a million miles away from the kind of place that Eamon had appeared in before TV came calling. What had changed was his attitude to women. The cavalier shag merchant of old was now urging caution, doing everything he could to get me to go back to my wife and stop the madness. Addiction had done to Eamon what it does to a lot of people.

It had made him long for stability.

’You’re messed up, Harry. You’ve screwed too many of the wrong women and screwed over too many of the right women. Like your wife.’

He had always had a soft spot for Cyd.

’You’re on in five minutes.’

But he would not let it go. Eamon – the only one who knew anything about us, apart from the cello-playing flatmate thought that it would be different if I could sleep with Kazumi. Get it out of my system. If Kazumi and I had sex, Eamon told me, then I would see her as just another girl. Because right now that was the one thing Kazumi was not – just another girl. But I didn’t think that sex, when it finally happened, would make any difference. Except to make it impossible to live without her.

’Can’t you see what you’re doing, Harry? You’re making the best bit go on and on.’

’The best bit?’

’The chase. The pursuit. The fever of anticipation. It’s the best bit, isn’t it? If we own up, it’s much better than anything that comes later.’

’Remind me never to have sex with you.’

’You don’t want the good stuff to die, Harry. Like it died with Gina. And with Cyd. Your wife. And every other woman you ever knew. You want the best to last. So what do you do? You get this platonic thing going. You make the chase, the pursuit, the delay of pleasure last forever.’

’Is that what I am doing? I don’t think so. I’ve slept with plenty of women that I didn’t love. Why can’t I love a woman that I haven’t slept with?’

Slept with – I couldn’t stop using that inaccurate euphemism. Everything else just sounded too mechanical.

’Look at it this way. What is it all about? The whole thing

– sex and romance, men and women? It’s about delaying the moment of release. It’s about postponing pleasure. It’s about putting ecstasy on hold. Relax, don’t do it. Frankie Goes to Hollywood knew what they were talking about, Harry. And what are you doing with this woman you haven’t slept with?’

’Tell me.’

’It’s obvious. By falling so hard for someone you haven’t shagged, you’re delaying the moment of release – permanently. Of course you’re mad about her. Why wouldn’t you be? You’ll be mad about her until you see that she’s flesh and blood. Just like your wife.’

’You think I’d stop caring about Kazumi if we had sex?’

’No. I think you would be able to think more clearly. At the moment you’re falling in love with a fantasy, and that’s the most dangerous thing in the world.’

’You really think you can’t care about someone until you’ve exchanged bodily fluids?’

’Hey, don’t knock it, Harry. It breaks the ice.’

I looked at my watch. ’You’re on in one minute.’

’No man can think clearly until he’s been despunked, Harry.’

Maybe. I could see that a platonic relationship made everything seem hopelessly romantic. A mid-afternoon cappuccino with Kazumi in some sun-dappled little café became something I’d remember forever. A Polaroid we took of ourselves on Primrose Hill – Kazumi laughing as we banged our heads together, trying to get in shot – became the highlight of my week. She squeezed my hand in the back row of the Swiss Cottage Odeon and it was more exciting than most of the blow jobs I’d had in my brief career as a boy about town. She just did it for me.

And, yes, I could see that this thing was getting out of control. But it was more than a fantasy. I was starting to measure the practicalities of a life with Kazumi. Dismantling one home, setting up another home, giving Kazumi and me the chance to get to that point that all couples, even the ones that are crazy about each other, have to reach eventually. That point where you don’t even feel the need to talk to each other.

It could work. I knew it could work. And maybe she was the one that I had needed all along. And perhaps it would make Cyd happier if she was with someone else. She certainly didn’t seem too thrilled by her life with me right now. So maybe it would be better all round. One harsh, painful tearing asunder

– of a marriage, a house, a home – and then everybody would get a chance to have their happy ending.

’You don’t even know her,’ Eamon said, interrupting my plans for a new life. ’You’ve spent – what? – a hundred hours around each other? If that.’

’How long do you think it takes? How long before you know?’

He shook his head, exasperated. Outside, surprisingly close, we could hear hecklers shouting down the female comedian on stage.

’You fucking idiot, Harry. You’re really going to leave your wife, your terrific wife, who you do not fucking deserve, for some slip of a girl you hardly know?’

He was genuinely angry with me.

’I didn’t say that.’

’Well, where do you think this thing is heading?’

’I don’t know.’

’You better start knowing, pal. You have started it now, and sooner or later – probably sooner – it will all end in tears.’

’Why should it end in tears?’

’Because you have to choose, you dumb bastard. Once you get into one of these things, you always have to choose.’

’And what if I make my choice, and I choose Kazumi? How do you know it would be a disaster? How can you be so sure?’

He held up his hands, a mocking surrender.

’I don’t know, Harry. Neither do you. But have sex with Kazumi. Have lots of sex. Then see how you feel the first time she says something negative about your son.’

’What if she never does? What if she’s great with him?’

’Then pack your bags and go.’

He pressed a silver key in my hand. I stared at it. He didn’t have to tell me that it was the key to his flat.

’Kazumi’s great,’ Eamon said. ’But the world is full of great women. That’s what romantic fools like you never admit. There are a million great women out there. Ten million. You could be in love with any one of them. Given the right circumstances, given timing. Sooner or later you have to stop tormenting yourself with the thought that there’s just one out there with your name on. You have to be happy with what you’ve got. You have to love the one you’re with. You have to say – this is my home now, this is my wife, and this is where I’m staying. Stop looking, Harry. Just stop looking, will you?’

From long ago, I heard the voices of my parents. Just rest your eyes, my mum and dad would tell me. Just rest your eyes.

But Eamon held out the silver key.

And I took it.

’I started using these sensitive condoms,’ Eamon said, prowling across the tiny stage. ’Sensitive condoms – yeah, they’re great. What they do is, after you have had sex and fallen asleep, the sensitive condom cuddles the girl and talks to her about her feelings. Sensitive condoms send flowers the next day. Never forget to call…”

A swell of laughter in the audience, mixed with a few groans. There wasn’t the easy willingness to laugh that you found in a TV audience. There was a kind of punter who came to these things for the pleasure of baiting the poor sap on stage. Out in the smoky darkness, some of them were restless.

’Got any coke, Eamon?’

’Ah, I don’t do that any more,’ Eamon said mildly. ’The doctor gave me suppositories for my addiction. I told him they weren’t working. He said, ”Well, have you been taking them regularly?” I said, ”What do you think I’ve been doing, doc? Shoving them up my arse?’”

More laughter. And some boos.

’Yeah, sensitive condoms. People say wearing a condom during sex is like wearing a raincoat in the shower. They’ve got to be kidding. With all these new diseases, not wearing a condom during sex is like wearing a live fuse box in the bath…”

Laughter and a smattering of increasingly vitriolic abuse.

’You loser, Eamon, you has-been!’

’Fuck off back to the detox clinic!’

’Waiter, this fish is off!’

’Condoms, yeah.” The little Woody Allen cough. ’These days you get packs of condoms for all different nationalities. You get the six-pack for Italians. That’s Monday to Saturday with a day of rest on Sunday. And you get the eight-pack for the French. That’s Monday to Saturday, and twice on Sunday. And you get the twelve-pack for the British.’ A pause. His timing was always good. ’January, February, March…”

A belligerent voice from the back, hoarse with cigarettes and loathing.

’Come in, Eamon Fish – your fifteen minutes is up!’

’My parents didn’t have to worry about condoms. Buy me and stop one – no, they didn’t have to worry about any of that. Not that their sex life was very happy. One night I heard them through the bedroom wall. They were trying to have sex and it just wasn’t working. My mother said, ”What’s the matter? Can’t you think of anyone either?’”

’You’re not funny!’ the voice shouted.

’It’s not that kind of comedy,’ Eamon said.

It was a big city but a small world. Sooner or later we were going to be seen together.

Naturally we avoided the danger zones of north and central London, that surprisingly large swathe of the city where Cyd could be working, or Gina could be lurking. But eventually we would be spotted. I knew it.

When it happened it was worse than I had imagined – and it was not my wife, or even my ex-wife, but someone from the outer suburbs of my life. He saw me as soon as he walked into the club, and took it all in.

The married man, the girl by his side who wasn’t his wife. In a quiet corner of the pub above the comedy club, having a drink, holding hands like they had done it before.

And I felt a sickening guilt that this man knew, this stranger, and my wife didn’t. I was ashamed of myself. It seemed like the worst betrayal imaginable.

’Harry,’ Richard said, looking at Kazumi.

What the hell was he doing here? What possible reason could this man have to be in a comedy club in Hackney?

’Richard. I thought you were still in the States.’

’Came over to see Gina.’ He finally took his eyes off Kazumi. ’To be honest, I want her to come back.’

’This is Kazumi,’ I said, for a cowardly moment thinking about passing her off as a work colleague, or a business associate.

But the truth is that Richard didn’t care. He was in a state that was beyond caring about the romantic tangles of others no job, no wife, and a life that had reached a point that he had never imagined. I knew the feeling.

Tm staying with some friends,’ he said. ’They’ve got a house around here. It’s becoming quite popular with the City people, isn’t it?’

’Them and the crack dealers. Listen, Richard, we have to go. Good luck with… everything.’

I watched Kazumi and Richard smiling and shaking hands and I thought of Gina’s old bull theory, knowing he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting her back.

Then we left him, our drinks abruptly abandoned, my guilt herding us out of the door.

And that’s when I remembered the key in my pocket.

We let ourselves into Eamon’s flat.

It had been bought during the boom years of Fish on Friday, lucrative personal appearances and beer endorsements

– a waterfront loft overlooking Tower Bridge, the Thames and the colonised docks, all lit up like a tourist postcard of London at night. Kazumi went to the wall-high windows and stared out at the inky-black river, the illuminated bridge, the glittering city.

Then she faced me.

’Kazumi -’

’No more talk.’

Lit only by the moonlight and the lights of the waterfront, we struggled to undress while kissing each other at the same time. We were half dressed and grappling on the sofa like teenagers in heat when Eamon came home.

Kazumi heard the key in the door before I did, and she was off the sofa and into the bathroom before Eamon and his companion were even in the living room.

I recognised the woman – a TV producer who had once worked as a runner on The Marty Mann Show. Eamon waved from the doorway, and then they disappeared into his bedroom. I heard laughter and music from behind the closed door. It shouldn’t have mattered, but the spell had been broken. Kazumi came back from the bathroom fully dressed and ready to go.

’Ah, not yet,’ I said. ’Please, Kazumi. Come here. Nobody’s going to disturb us again. Look at the view.’

She shook her head. ’It’s not my view.’

I didn’t try to argue with her. I wearily did up the buttons of my shirt. We quietly let ourselves out of the flat.

’It can’t go on like this,’ she said as I flagged down a taxi. ’I mean it, Harry. It can’t go on.’

And it didn’t.

Because after dropping Kazumi off I went home, where my wife told me that she was leaving me.

twenty-five

I had been left before, of course.

But this time was different.

When Gina left me, she went in a fury – not caring what she took and what she left behind, just wanting to be out of our home, just wanting to be away from me and our life.

I remembered a half-shut suitcase spilling Pat’s socks, betrayed tears smudging her mascara and a throbbing pain just above my heart, where she had thrown my mobile phone at me.

Despite all of that, when Gina left there still felt like the faint chance that she would one day change her mind, that she would come back home, and that the rage would eventually pass.

It wasn’t like that with Cyd.

Cyd’s leaving was calm and methodical.

No tears, no raised voices, nothing done in haste. A grown-up, rational leaving, that somehow felt even worse. She wasn’t leaving tonight. She wasn’t leaving tomorrow. But she was leaving soon.

In our little guest room my wife had suitcases and overnight bags open on the single bed, and covering what looked like every spare square inch of the parquet floor. Some of the cases were almost empty. Others were already filling up with books, toys, CDs and winter clothes belonging to both her and Peggy. By the time the season changed, Cyd planned to be somewhere else.

With Gina I had felt that I still had a chance.

With Cyd there was no doubt at all.

She was never coming back.

’Going somewhere?’

She turned to face me. ’Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.’ She turned back to the suitcase she was packing, stacking a pile of Peggy’s thick woollen sweaters, shaking her head. ’Sorry.’

’What is this?’ I said, coming slowly into the room.

’What does it look like?’

’Looks like you’re moving out.’

She nodded. ’Like I said – sorry.’

’Why?’

She turned and faced me, and I saw the hurt and anger under the calm. ’Because you’ve left me already. I can feel it. I don’t know why you stay, Harry. And you know the sad thing? Neither do you. You can’t work out what you are doing with me. You can’t remember.’

I shook my head, although I knew every word was true. Somewhere along the line I had forgotten why we were together, and that’s why it had been so easy to fall for someone else.

’I can’t mess around, Harry. I told you that from the start. It’s not just me. I’ve got a daughter. I have to think about her. And I know that, with things the way they are between us, sooner or later you’re going to meet some little fuck buddy.’

’A fucky buddy?’

’Fuck buddy. Someone you can have uncomplicated sex with

– you’ll meet her sooner or later. Maybe you already have, I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know. Come on, Harry we don’t even sleep in the same bed any more. There’s a fuck buddy out there with your name on.’

Blended families and fuck buddies. It was a whole new world out there. My father wouldn’t have recognised it. I didn’t recognise it myself.

’Cyd, the last thing I’m looking for is a fuck buddy.’

She studied me for a bit. And perhaps she could see that this was true too.

’Then you’ll find somebody you love, and that will be even messier. Not messier for you. But for me and my daughter. Remember her? And that’s who I have to worry about now. You’ll meet some young woman, and you’ll do what you always do, Harry – tell her that she is the greatest girl in the history of the world.’

’Is that what I do?’

My wife nodded. ’And you will believe every word of it, Harry. And so will she. Or maybe it’s happened already. Has it, Harry? Have you met the greatest girl in the history of the world? Or just the latest in a long line of them?’

I looked from Cyd to her open cases and back again. She had packed her photo albums. The ones of Peggy growing up. The one of our wedding day. The ones that recorded our holidays over the years. She had stored them all away.

’Please don’t leave.’ I didn’t want it to end this way. Not any way. Something inside me recoiled from making the final, necessary break.

’Why not? This isn’t working, Harry. Not for you. And not for me.’

’Please

I made a move towards her, but she held up her hand like a traffic cop.

’You’re not a bad guy, Harry. You’ve got a good heart. I really believe that. But we could waste our lives being kind to each other. Twenty years could go by, and we still wouldn’t know why we were together. I know you want what your parents had, Harry. I know you want a marriage like that. Well, guess what? You’re not the only one.’

’It’s been a tough time. With my mum, with our kids, with work.’

’The tough times should bring us closer together. I wasn’t expecting nothing but fun-packed adventure. This is a marriage, not Club Med. Sticking together through the bad times, growing stronger and closer through them – that’s what it’s all about. But not our marriage, Harry. And not us.’

I knew I had no right to feel as bad as I felt. But I couldn’t help it. Seeing Cyd packing her bags seemed like the greatest failure of my life. And what pulled at the wound was that I knew she was right. She deserved more than she was getting in this marriage.

'I'm leaving because you can’t, Harry. Because you’re not cruel enough to go. But don’t do me any favours, okay? Don’t stay because you pity me. Don’t stay because you feel guilty. Don’t stay just because you’re not strong enough to go.’

’I stay because I care about you.’

She smiled gently, placing her hand on my face. ’If you really care about me, you’ll help me get out of this thing.’

’But where will you go?’

’Back home. To Houston. To my mother and my sisters. There’s nothing for me here any more.’

’When?’

’After Jim’s wedding. Peggy is looking forward to being his bridesmaid. I’m not going to take that away from her.’

I picked up a leather photo album from the suitcase on the bed, opening it at a picture that felt like it was taken a lifetime ago. Pat’s fifth birthday party, in the back garden of my parents’ house. Pat fresh-faced and gorgeous. Peggy, that crucial bit older, grave and serious as she examined the strawberry jelly in front of her. And my mum and dad, healthy and grinning for the camera and relieved that the day was going well. And Cyd – smiling, waving a fish-paste sandwich at me as I took the picture. A tall, slim, beautiful woman, a single mother who had just realised that she was not only going to get through this ordeal – meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time – but she was actually going to enjoy it. How young we all seemed.

’Remember this? Remember Pat’s fifth birthday party?’

She laughed.

’What I remember is your dad choking on a sausage roll when I told him my ex-husband was going out with a Thai stripper.’

I smiled at the memory. ’A bit went down the wrong hole. That was one of my old man’s favourite expressions.’

I closed the photo album and placed it back in the suitcase. ’I’m sorry too, Cyd. I’m sorry I didn’t make you happy.’

I meant it.

’Come here,’ she said, and I went to her, and we held each other for the longest time.

’Still friends then?’ I said.

’Always friends, Harry.’ She gently released me and turned back to her packing. ’But I’d rather get out while there’s still a little love left.’

My mum had taken to wearing her Dolly Parton wig.

Losing her hair during chemo was about the only indignity that she had been spared, but the big, golden wig was now seeing active service. It framed her still-pretty face as she let Pat and me into her home, and it glinted and glistened in the sunlight like a knight’s suit of armour.

’But what happened to your head?’ Pat asked.

’This is my Dolly Parton hair, darling.’

’You’re okay, are you?’ I asked. ’Your hair hasn’t started you know.’

’Not at all. Fifty pounds this was in Harrods. Shame to waste it. Besides, blondes have more fun. As Rod Stewart said.’

She actually looked terrific in her wig. But as Pat busied himself with the DVD player, I sat in the back garden with my mum while she told me that wearing it had nothing to do with wanting to be blonde.

’I’m different now,’ she said. ’People think you’re over it. But you’re never over it. Every ache, every pain – you wonder if it’s coming back, if this is it. You get a cold and you wonder if it’s the cancer. Listen to me. I sound so sorry for myself

’No, you don’t, Mum.’

’My Dolly Parton wig,’ she said, touching the spun-gold locks. ’It’s a way of showing the world I’m not the same. I’m different now, okay? People say to me – back to normal, Liz?’ My mum shook her head. ’I get so mad. I can’t pretend that this thing hasn’t happened to me. How can you tell them? How can you make them understand? Life will never be normal again. Normal has changed.’

I knew what she meant. At least, I think I did. Getting sick again was always going to be a possibility. And now it was going to be like this forever.

’But I’m stronger too,’ my mum said. ’Look at me in my big hair – I go down the shops and I don’t care who looks at me. What people say – that’s the least of our problems, isn’t it? I’m living for now. Trying to live life to the full. In my own quiet way. I don’t plan ten years ahead. If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster. Now I try to appreciate what I’ve got.’ She took my hand. ’And appreciate how much I’m loved.’

’You’re going to be around for years, Mum. You’ve beaten this thing. You’ll see Pat grow up.’

I really wanted to believe it.

’It’s hard for people,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard a word I had said. ’I think your dad felt this way. When he came back from the war. Who could he talk to – really talk to – about what he’d been through? Only men who had been through the same thing. The ones who knew.’

She showed me a leaflet. It was one of those pink and purple breast cancer leaflets. But this was a new one.

’You can get training,’ my mum said, opening the leaflet. ’They train you to be a counsellor. So you can talk to women who are going through the same thing you went through. And I know now that’s what I want to do. I want to help women who are fighting breast cancer. See, Harry? I can actually say it now. I couldn’t even say it before. Cancer. As if I had something to be ashamed of, as if it was my fault. Do you remember a young blonde girl at the hospital? A pretty thing? A bit younger than you. Two little boys, she had. Little smashers. About Pat’s age.’

I had a vague memory of a pale young woman who was in my mother’s ward.

’Well, she died,’ my mum said, her eyes suddenly welling up.

’You’re not going to die.’

’I want to talk to girls like that. Women, I mean. You have to call them women now, don’t you? Well, she was just a girl to me.’

Pat came into the garden, bored with the DVD. He hadn’t wanted to come to his grandmother’s house today. Bernie Cooper had asked him over TO play I felt guilty doing it, but I had persuaded my son that we had to be with his grandmother now. Because my mum was right. Normal had changed. And I had no way of knowing how long we had left.

’My two beautiful boys,’ she said, throwing open her arms. ’Hug me. The pair of you. Come on, I’m not going to break.’

So we hugged her, and we laughed as we buried our faces in that Dolly Parton wig, and we knew that at that moment we loved her more than anyone on the face of the earth.

Pat wandered back to the living room, and my mum smiled with sadness and happiness all at once, patting my shoulder.

’Your dad would be proud of you.’

I laughed. ’I don’t know why.’

’Because you’ve taken good care of me through all this. Because you love your son. Because you’re a good man. You always compare yourself to your dad and find yourself lacking. And you’re wrong, Harry. No matter how tall your father is, you still have to do your own growing.’

’But how did you and Dad do it, Mum? How do you love someone for a lifetime? How do you make a marriage work for all that time?’

My mum didn’t even have to think about it.

’You have to keep falling in love,’ she said. ’You just have to keep falling in love with the same person.’

You always took your shoes off at Gina’s, so the moment Pat let us in with his own personal key, I saw them immediately

– great big size tens forcing everything else off the WELCOME mat, a bit down at heel and in need of a good polish, more like landing craft than shoes.

A new boyfriend, I guessed. No surprise there. She was never going to be alone for very long. Not looking like that. Still.

And as I helped Pat out of his coat, I thought what I so often thought when I was around my ex-wife.

What about my boy?

If Gina starts seeing someone new, then what does that mean for Pat? Will the guy like my son? Or will he see him as an irritation?

Gina appeared by our side, looking red-faced and flustered. I felt a flash of irritation at my ex-wife. What the hell was she doing in there with that big-foot guy?

’Granny’s got new hair,’ Pat told her.

’That’s nice, darling,’ she said, not listening to him, looking at me looking at the landing craft.

’It’s yellow,’ Pat said.

’Lovely.’

Pat was out of his coat and kicking off his shoes.

’You go inside. Someone in there wants to see you. I want to talk to your daddy.’

Pat ran up the stairs to the living area of the flat. I could hear a man’s baritone talking to him, and Pat responding with his sweet, high voice.

’Richard,’ Gina said.

’Richard?’

’Looks like we’re going to have another crack at it.’

Upstairs I could hear Richard and Pat exchanging stilted small talk.

What about my boy?

’You surprise me, Gina.’

’Do I?’

’Yes. What about the old cow theory?’

’The old bull theory.’

’Whatever it was. I thought that when you were finished with them, you were really finished with them.’

She laughed. ’Maybe I was thinking of you, Harry.’

I took a breath, let it pass.

’What happened?’

She shrugged. ’I guess I felt isolated. And a little bit scared, maybe. You know what it’s like when you’re living on your own with a child.’

’Yes, I know what it’s like.’

’You get lonesome. You do. No matter how much you love them, you get lonesome. And it’s hard to meet new people. It’s really hard, Harry. And I’m not even sure I want to go through all that crap. Dates – God, spare me from dates. Who’s got the energy for all that crap at our age?’

’I bumped into Richard. Did he tell you?’

She nodded, but there was nothing in her eyes to indicate that she knew about Kazumi and me. So Richard had kept my secret. Or perhaps he truly didn’t care.

All he wanted was his wife back.

’It wasn’t so bad between us,’ Gina said. ’The move was tough. And trying for a baby and not getting one – that was even tougher. But we’re going to have a crack at IVF.’

’Fertility treatment?’

She nodded. ’They give me drugs to produce a large number of eggs. Richard has to – you know – masturbate.’

Shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Richard.

I stared at her. One minute she was finished with this guy, and the next minute her ovaries were working overtime to have his baby. I didn’t understand her at all. Is who we share our life with really so random? Is it so easily Tom down, and then put back together?

Gina mistook my silence for doubts about fertility treatment.

’It’s all the rage these days, Harry. In some fertility clinics, the really good ones, you have a better chance of conception with IVF than you have with regular old-fashioned shagging. It’s true.’

’I don’t know, Gina. I heard IVF treatment is expensive. And doesn’t always work.’

’Maybe going through it will make us stronger. Make us a real husband and wife. Isn’t that what we all want?’

’But you don’t love him any more, Gina. You can’t just be with someone – be married to them, have a baby with them because you’re feeling a bit lonesome.’

’Can’t you? What am I supposed to do? Wait for Mr Right to come along? Not enough time, Harry, not enough energy. Sometimes this is what I think – the person you’re with is just the person you’re with. That’s all. End of story. It’s no more than that.’

’You old romantic.’

’It’s not so bad. You’re partners. You stick together. You support each other. So it’s not like one of the old songs – so what? A grown-up can’t go around falling in love all the time like some dumb-ass teenager. What kind of mess would that make of your life?’

’You don’t choose who you fall in love with.’

’How naïve you sound. Of course you choose, Harry. Of course you do.’

I liked to think that we were friends. And I liked to think that I still cared about her. That I would always care about her. But this caring for my ex-wife, it only went so far. In the end, my thoughts always came back to the same place.

’What about my boy?’

’Your boy?’ she said. ’Your boy, Harry? You should have thought of your boy before you banged some little slut from your office, shouldn’t you?’

And all at once I saw that there’s no one on this planet more distant than someone you were once married to.

twenty-six

’Man gets on a crowded flight,’ said Eamon, roaming through the smoky gloaming. ’Plane’s totally full. But the seat next to him, the seat next to him is empty.’ Hand to mouth, little Woody Allen cough. ’Thinks – wonder who I’m going to be sitting next to? As you do, right? Then the most beautiful woman he ever saw in his life comes down the aisle. The face of an angel and legs up to her neck. Sure enough, she sits right down in the seat next to our man.’ Hunched in the spotlight. The crowd paying attention. ’The guy finally works up the courage to talk to her. ”Excuse me? Excuse me? Where are you headed?” ”Oh,” says she, ”I’m off to the Kilcarney Sex Convention. I lecture on the subject. Dispel some of the myths surrounding sex.” ”Like what?” ”Well, for example,” says she, ”many people believe that black men are more generously endowed than other men. And in fact it is Native American men who are more likely to reveal that physiological trait. And then popular wisdom has it that French men make the best lovers. Whereas statistics show that Greek men are far more likely to give sexual pleasure to their partners.” Then she blushed. ”But I’m telling you all this, and I don’t even know your name.” The guy reached out his hand. ”Tonto,” he said. ”Tonto Papadopolous.”’

And as the crowd laughed, I could see myself in that man, and in that punch line.

It had never been in my plans to become the kind of man who lies without even having to think about it. That had never been the kind of man I wanted to be. My father had never been that kind of man.

But by now I found I needed to lie just to balance the demands on my time. It was madness.

Just call me Tonto. Tonto Papadopolous.

As Cyd helped Peggy into her bridesmaid’s dress upstairs, and Pat sat on the carpet watching the horse racing on Channel 4 that kid would watch anything, I swear – I sneaked down to the bottom of the garden to call Kazumi on my mobile.

We were meeting for dinner. That was the schedule. And this simple thing – a man having dinner with a woman – had to be planned in utmost secrecy, as though we were doing something illegal, or incredibly dangerous. And I was sick of it, to tell the truth. I would be glad when all the sneaking around was over. Not long now.

When I went back into the house Peggy was standing at the top of the stairs, grinning from ear to ear, wearing her bridesmaid’s dress.

’How do I look, Harry?’

’Like an angel.’

And she did. Just like a little angel. And I felt a stab of regret that this child who I had watched grow up would soon be out of my life forever.

She ran back into the bedroom with some instructions for her mother about the flowers she was wearing in her hair while I went into the living room and sat next to my son. He was still staring blankly at the race meeting on the box. Sometimes I worried about this kid.

’You want to see what else is on, Pat?’

He grunted a negative, not looking at me.

Pat had come home with me because his mother had things to discuss with his – what was Richard these days? His exstepfather? His future stepdad? The designated sperm donor to his half-siblings? I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with my ex-wife’s soap opera. But then who was I to feel superior?

At least everything that Gina did was out in the open.

’I didn’t know you were a gambling man, Pat,’ Cyd said, coming into the room.

’Horses,’ Pat said, turning his face to look up at Cyd. ’Horses are so beautiful.’

I felt a stab of guilt. So he wasn’t gawping mindlessly at the box. The horses enchanted him. Why hadn’t he told me that? Why had he saved this revelation for Cyd? Was it perhaps because I hadn’t asked him?

She smiled and sat down on the floor with him. ’Horses are beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said. ’There’s a – what would you call it? – nobility, I guess. Yes, there’s a nobility about horses.’

’A what?’

’Nobility.’ She turned to look at me. ’How would you define nobility, Harry?’

’Dignity,’ I said. ’Decency. Goodness.’

Like you, I thought, looking at the woman I had married. Dignity, decency and goodness. Just like you.

Not that Cyd resembled a horse.

She put her arm around my boy’s shoulder and watched the horses with him and I realised that she had always been good with him – kind, patient, loving even. So what had been the problem? The problem had been me, and not being satisfied with her kindness, patience and love.

The problem had been me all along, and wanting Cyd to be something that she could never ever be.

His mother.

I had never seen Peggy so excited.

She was in her bridesmaid’s outfit for hours before she was due to be picked up, posing and preening in front of every available reflecting surface in the house, then running to the window to check the street for her father.

Finally we heard the sound of a bike revving its engine in the street.

’He’s here!’ Peggy shouted, tearing herself away from the mirror in the hall.

’Don’t forget your crash helmet,’ her mother called from upstairs.

It was a themed wedding. The bride and groom were arriving at the registrar’s office on motorbikes. Even the priest who was giving their union a blessing at a nearby church was turning up on his Honda and conducting the service in his leathers. The reception was at the historic Ton Up Café on the Ml.

Peggy was at the door waving to Jim when Cyd came down the stairs.

And the sight of her stunned me.

She was wearing a dress I hadn’t seen for years. Her old green silk cheongsam. The dress she had been wearing the night I fell in love with her.

She saw me looking at her, but ignored me, as if it was perfectly natural to walk around in this special dress. She helped Peggy into her crash helmet. ’Hold Daddy tight, okay?’

Together we escorted Peggy to the kerb. There were two bikes, Jim on his Norton with Liberty, the happy bride, perched on the back in her wedding dress, and the best man on an ancient Triumph with a sidecar. Jim and his best man were both wearing leathers over their wedding tails. Liberty’s only concession to road safety was a snow-white helmet. I stiffly congratulated Jim. It was not an easy situation. His ex-wife’s estranged husband wishing her first husband well on his most recent wedding day. So we did what adults always do at a time like this – we concentrated on the child. Cyd fussed with Peggy’s frills as she placed her in the sidecar, and I made sure her crash helmet was secure.

Then they were gone, roaring off down the street, wedding tails and bride’s dress flying.

’You going out somewhere?’ I said.

Cyd replied without looking at me. ’Just doing some packing,’ she said. ’Deciding what I want to take and what I want to throw away.’

’And are you taking that dress with you?’

’No. I just wanted to see if it still fits.’ The bikes were gone now. She looked at me. ’Before I throw it away.’

She had worn that dress on what was probably the happiest night of my life. That happiness just came upon me, the way true happiness does, and it was caused by the joy of simply standing by her side. We were at an awards ceremony at one of the big hotels on Park Lane, the kind of long, drunken, back-slapping shindig that I usually despised.

But that night I was so glad to be alive as the soft blue light faded over Hyde Park, and I was so grateful to be with this incredible woman in her green silk dress that I honestly believed I would never be sad again.

’It still fits,’ I told her.

Cyd took herself upstairs to pack.

I went into the living room and sat next to my son on the carpet. The beautiful horses had gone and he was channel-surfing through the mind-numbing doldrums of mid-afternoon television. The snatched images flashed before his blue eyes. Dude, Where’s My Trousers?, snowboarding, Six Pissed Students in a Flat, old music videos, Wicked World, Russian fashion models, Art? My Arse!, the baking channel, Sorry, I’m a Complete Git. I gently took the remote from his hot little hand, and switched off the TV.

’Are you okay, Pat?’

He nodded, noncommittal.

’Didn’t Peggy look lovely in her bridesmaid’s dress?’

He thought about it. ’She looked like a lady.’

’Didn’t she?’ I put my arm around him. He snuggled close to me. ’And what about you? How are you feeling?’

’I’m a little bit worried.’

’What about, darling?’

’Bernie Cooper,’ he said. ’Bernie Cooper says that dogs need a passport.’

’Well, I guess that’s true. If a dog is going to be moved from one country to another, it needs some form of ID. Bernie’s right there.’

’Well, then, this is what I want to know – does Britney have a passport?’

’Britney?’

’My dog Britney. Because, if Britney doesn’t have a passport, then how is Richard going to get him into London, where we all live now?’

’I’m sure Richard can work that one out. And what about Richard? How do you feel about seeing him again?’

He shrugged. I believe he was genuinely more concerned about his dog than his stepfather. Britney meant infinitely more to Pat than Richard ever could. And of course a dog is for life, whereas a step-parent could be for any length of time.

’Mummy and Richard – they might live together again.’

My son nodded, biting his bottom lip thoughtfully as he eyed the remote control in my hand.

’Are you happy about that, darling? It doesn’t just affect Mummy and Richard. It affects you too. I want you to – I don’t know – tell me if anything worries you. That’s what I’m here for, okay? You can always talk to me. Did Mummy talk to you about any of this stuff? About what she’s planning to do with Richard?’

Another nod.

’They’re going to try to make it work, Daddy.’

They’re going to try to make it work.

When I was a kid, a seven-year-old talking about trying to make it work meant a wonky train set on your birthday or a new Scalextric on Christmas Day. We put the TV back on in silence.

Now when a kid talked about making it work, he meant a marriage.

There was a howl of motorbikes in the street.

Peggy was back from her wedding.

Cyd came downstairs, still in her green dress. I felt a surge of something that might have been hope, or maybe only nostalgia. But I was glad she hadn’t thrown the dress out yet.

We went out to the street where a. dozen bikes were idling. All these men in tails and women in party dresses, leathers and helmets on top of their wedding kit, sitting proudly astride their big BMWs and Nortons and HarJeys and Triumphs. The bride was riding pillion on Jim’s bike while Peggy was sitting primly in the only sidecar in the convoy. Her mother fished her out. ’Good wedding?’ Cyd said.

Peggy began to babble with excitement. ’I held the flowers and walked right behind Liberty as she walked up the aisle of the registration office.’

Jim laughed. ’That’s my girl. Come here, princess, give your daddy a big kiss.’

Cyd and I watched awkwardly while father and daughter embraced. Peggy’s part in the celebrations was over. She wasn’t joining the happy couple for their wedding reception at the Ton Up Café. Then they would be off to Manila for their honeymoon.

Jim placed his daughter on his lap, facing him, both of them wreathed in smiles.

Pat had joined us on the pavement. He covered his ears against the noise of the bikes.

’Well,’ Cyd said. ’Congratulations.’ ’Yes,’ I said. ’Congratulations.’

Jim just grinned and then they were gone. I couldn’t believe it. Jim’s bike roaring off down the street with his bride behind him and his daughter in front. You could hear the bride and the bridesmaid shrieking with delight. I thought it was a kidnapping. I thought he was stealing her.

’She should have her helmet,’ Cyd said. ’I know it’s just a bit of fun, but I don’t like this.’

Jim turned at the end of the street and headed back towards us, his daughter laughing in his arms, his bride’s wedding dress streaming behind them. The bike flared up on its back wheel, and all three of them cried out with that sound of appalled pleasure you hear on a roller-coaster ride. Jim’s bike squealed to a halt. The other wedding guests applauded and revved their engines.

’More,’ said Peggy.

Just once more,’said Jim.

’No more,’ said Cyd, lifting Peggy from the bike. ’Oh, MumV

Jim sighed elaborately. ’Same old Cyd.’ ’Enough,’ I told him.

The groom looked at me, his smile all gone, and I realised that it was the first time that day he had actually looked me in the eye.

’Enough?’ he said. ’Enough, did you say? Who are you to tell me enough, pal? She’s my daughter.’ ’I live with her,’ I said.

He sneered at me. ’Yeah, but not for much longer, right?’ I looked at Cyd and she looked away. So she had told her ex-husband about us. And I suspected that this show of happiness – the themed wedding, the crowd of friends on our doorstep, the Evel Knievel routine with Peggy – had less to do with his daughter than with his first wife.

We can resist every temptation with our old partners, apart from telling them how happy we are now.

’I know about you, Harry,’ Jim said. ’You’re no parent to Peggy. You’re not even a father to your own son, are you?’

I looked at Pat. He was covering his ears. I didn’t know if it was because of the bikes or Jim.

First Luke Moore, now Jim. The world was full of people who thought they had a better claim on my wife than me. And maybe what made me so angry was that I knew it was my own fault they felt that way.

’You’re a jerk, Jim. You’ve always been a jerk and you always will be. You love your daughter, do you? You’re a good dad, are you? It takes more than inviting her to your latest wedding.’

’Stop it, you two!’ Cyd shouted, putting Peggy on the ground. She began shoving Jim away. Just go, will you? Just go. Liberty, tell him to go.’

But Jim wouldn’t budge. He was acting all indignant, as if he had restrained himself with me for years, but was finally going to tell me what was on his mind.

’I’ll be glad when you’re out of Peggy’s life,’ he told me.

I pushed my face close to his. I could smell cheap champagne and Calvin Klein. ’You think you’re in her life, do you? Coming round when you feel like it and then not a word ffor weeks? You call that being in a child’s life?’

Cyd was screaming now. ’Go! Go!’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Peggy ancd Pat backing away. They were holding hands. Both of them were crying. A couple of the wedding guests were dismounting tlheir bikes and giving me meaningful looks. It was getting nasty/.

And that was when Peggy stumbled from the jpavement, let go of Pat’s hand and fell into the road.

She was immediately hit by a car.

The impact spun her around and dumped her back on the pavement, her legs still sprawling in the road. THiere was dirt all over the top of her bridesmaid’s dress. Christ nco, not again, I thought, remembering Pat with his head split ‹open at four years old, sprawled at the bottom of an empty swirmming pool. I stood there stunned as Cyd rushed to her daughteir. Somebody was screaming. Then Liberty was on her knees, pmshing Cyd aside. A nurse, I thought. She’s a nurse.

I looked at the white-faced driver of the car. He w;as about my age, but in a suit and tie, driving a brand-new BMW^. He hadn’t been going fast – just crawling past the unbroken liines of cars, looking for a precious parking space – but he mustt have been doing something with his mobile phone, because it was still in his hand, playing a speeded-up version of ’Waltzimg Matilda’. Not watching the road well enough to avoid hitting a little girl who fell right in front of him without warning. There was a slight dent in his nearside bumper.

Cyd was screaming and crying, trying to hold heir daughter while Liberty pushed her away with one hand, anid cradled Peggy with the other. Jim was pulling at me – trying to get me out of the way, trying to hit me, I coulldn’t tell. And Liberty was shouting at someone, but I couldn’t work out who, and then I got it. It seemed strange to me that, out of all the people she could be addressing, Liberty was talking to the BMW driver with the mobile playing ’Waltzing Matilda’.

’Ambulance,’ she said. ’Call an ambulance!’

I wondered what had been so important. A text message from his girlfriend, I thought. He’s just like me.

In his own little dream world, hurting everyone around him.

Peggy fractured her leg.

That was it. That was all. And that was bad enough -1 hope I never see a child in that much pain again – but we sat in the back of the ambulance knowing that she could have been killed.

A greenstick fracture, the doctor at the hospital called it, meaning an incomplete break of the bone. The outer shell of the bone was intact, and the fracture was inside. The doctor said that a greenstick fracture is what children get, because their bones are so flexible. The bones of adults just break in two. Give them a hard enough knock, and adults just fall to pieces.

They gave her a CT scan even though her head wasn’t bruised, and it was clear. They gave her junior painkillers, put her in plaster and hiked up her leg in a kind of hammock that sat on top of her hospital bed. She was soon sitting up and gazing imperiously at the other residents of the children’s ward.

It wasn’t like Pat’s accident. She was never in any lifethreatening danger. But I still glimpsed a vision of a world where something unspeakable had happened, and it made my blood run cold.

There were five of us sitting by her bed. Jim and Liberty. Cyd and Pat. And me. Drinking bad tea from Styrofoam cups, not talking much, still numb with shock. After screaming at each other in the street, we might have felt embarrassed to be here together, if relief had not overwhelmed every other emotion. When the doctor came to the bedside, we all jumped to our feet.

’We’ll keep her with us for a while,’ he said. ’What we’ve done is reduce the fracture, meaning the broken ends have been restored to their natural position, and now we just have to hold the reduced fracture in place while it heals.’ He patted Peggy on the head. ’Do you like dancing, little lady?’

’I dance very well, actually,’ Peggy said.

’Well, you’ll soon be dancing as well as ever.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jim glance at his watch. He and Liberty had a plane to catch. When the doctor had gone, the bride and groom said their goodbyes and rushed off to the airport. Then there were just the three of us.

We stayed by Peggy’s bed until night had fallen and she had slipped into sleep. Cyd put her arms around Pat and me, and that somehow seemed to be the signal to release all the pent-up tension of the day.

Keeping the noise down so we wouldn’t disturb Peggy and her sleeping neighbours, Cyd and Pat and I held on to each other as we all cried with relief.

And for the very first time in my entire life, I couldn’t tell where my family ended, and where it began.

twenty-seven

I still went to see Kazumi.

Despite everything that had happened.

And as she buzzed me through the front door, I wondered how can you do it? How can you come to see this girl when Peggy is in the hospital? And, not for the first time, I wondered what my father would have thought of me.

But I knew I was there simply because it was easier than not being there. I had taken Pat to my mum’s, wanting to spare him from Gina and Richard’s latest reconciliation, and cancelling Kazumi would have been harder – more excuses, more lies – than just turning up late for this appointment with my secret life.

There was nothing I could do at the hospital. Once the initial shock had passed, Cyd even seemed a little embarrassed to have me touching her – holding her, cuddling her, trying to comfort her. Inappropriate, she seemed to feel, what with all those half-packed suitcases waiting for her in the guest room. We had come too far apart for all that. What good would I have done at the hospital? I couldn’t even hold my wife’s hand.

So I went to see Kazumi. I came up the stairs, still sick to my stomach from the trauma of the accident and the rush to the hospital, still numb from the hours of waiting around and then more hours crawling on the motorway out to my mum’s place. I had spent the day watching a child in trouble and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The worst feeling in the world.

Kazumi looked down over the banisters. And when I saw her, the long black hair pulled back from her smiling, lovely face, it occurred to me that this was meant to be our special night. And when she kissed me I was certain. She was ready to take that final step. All my old wedding vows had been declared null and void. We were going to cross the line, and make promises of our own.

Inside the flat the sound of a cello running through its scales came from the second bedroom. The flatmate was home, but Kazumi smiled conspiratorially.

’Staying in room,’ she said. ’Has to practise. Don’t worry.’

The table was set for two, a special dinner for two champagne flutes, linen napkins, a single white candle in a silver candlestick, already lit, the flame dancing in the twilight. And my heart throbbed like an old, fading bruise when I saw all the trouble she had gone to.

’Pat okay? Mum okay?’

’They’re fine.’

She was in my life. She knew my son and my mother. She cared about them, they liked her. In time, if you gave it years to grow, they could love her. And she could love them. I knew it. This was all true. She was in my blood now. She was part of it all. Well, not quite all of it. For just as she was locked away from Cyd, so Cyd was locked away from her. And I couldn’t tell Kazumi about Peggy, I wouldn’t know where to start.

In the middle of the table was a large pan sitting on top of some kind of small gas cooker. Like something you would use for camping, if you were a gourmet chef with a taste for the great outdoors. There were plates of thinly sliced beef, white chunks of tofu and piles of uncooked vegetables, some of which I recognised.

’Sukiyaki,’ I said. ’Lovely.’

She was delighted. ’All westerner love sukiyaki. Began in Japan when Meiji Emperor started eating meat. Start of twentieth century. Until then – fish only.’

’I didn’t know that,’ I said, sinking into a chair. ’I didn’t know any of that.’

A champagne cork popped, and she filled our glasses.

’Kampai,’ I said.

’Cheers,’ she said.

She came around the table, placed a quick kiss on my lips and then, smiling, threw some thin slices of beef and some raw vegetables into the sizzling pan, covering them with some kind of sauce. In the bedroom the flatmate had stopped practising her scales and started playing ’Song Without Words’. And with all its sadness and stillness and sense of things being lost forever, that music was like a fist around my throat.

’Sauce called warashita. Made of soy sauce, sweet rice wine and sugar. You know what happens next?’

There were two eggs on the table next to a pair of lacquered bowls.

’We whip up the raw eggs, and then dip in the beef and vegetables,’ I said, struggling against the fist around my throat.

’Hah!’ she said. ’Big sukiyaki expert, I can see.’

And I saw something too. All at once I saw that the dream I’d had would never come true, not in a million years. I had dreamed of starting again – running away with Kazumi, taking my son with us. That’s what I wanted. Not merely a new woman. Not just that. But a world made whole and a family restored. A new wife. A new life.

I don’t know where I honestly thought we were going to go. The west of Ireland. Paris. Maybe some other corner of north London would have been enough. Maybe Primrose Hill would have been far enough. Anywhere. But we were going, and in my dream we were already on our way.

Now I saw that the dream would never come true. It wasn’t Kazumi’s fault. It was because the price was too high to pay. Too much that was precious would have to be discarded, too much life thrown away, before I could start again.

I thought that my feeling for her – love, romance, you can call it what you like – was the only thing that mattered.

And that just wasn’t true.

Other things mattered too.

I know I could have done the traditional thing. I could have tried to keep Cyd halfway happy, while stringing Kazumi along, keeping her halfway happy too. Screwing the pair of them, in every way possible. And I could have got away with it by lying to everyone, to Cyd, to Kazumi, but mostly myself- telling myself that I genuinely loved both of them. In my own sweet way.

But try loving two women and you end up loving nobody at all, not in the way they warrant.

Try loving two of them and this is what it does – it breaks you in half.

You need a heart of stone to lead one of those double lives. And so does she. The other woman. I knew Kazumi wasn’t built for that kind of life. I knew that Kazumi wasn’t cut out to be my mistress. She wasn’t cold enough, old enough, tough enough. All the reasons that I loved her were all the reasons she could never be a bit on the side. She had the sweetest, gentlest heart in the world. I still believe that. Even now.

In the end, I knew her so well. And I could see glimpses of myself in her, or at least the best of me. She believed, really believed, that she could find a love that would transform her world. And perhaps she was right. But I knew now she was never going to find it with me.

It was all or nothing with this woman. That’s why I loved her

– and I can say that now. I loved her. But she wasn’t cut out for an affair. The right girl in so many ways, she was the wrong girl to play that role. She was a romantic. Say what you like about those starry-eyed souls, about the upheaval and destruction they always leave in their wake, but there is one thing about romantics that nobody can deny. They never settle for second best.

’Kazumi,’ I said, standing up.

Her face fell. ’Problem – with egg? You don’t like raw egg?'

I carefully placed my champagne flute on the table.

’Raw egg is fine. It’s just that… I can’t do this. I am so, so sorry. I have to go.’

She nodded, taking it all in, the anger flaring.

’Go on, then. Go back to your wife.’

’I’m so sorry.’

She picked up the silver candlestick and threw it at me, a wild throw that made it fly past my head and left a splash of white candle wax on the tablecloth. She lashed out at our special meal with furious fists, and it all went crashing. Glasses and vegetables, silver cutlery and chopsticks, pretty napkins splashed with soy sauce. Across the table, to the floor, fragments of our special meal smashing against my legs. Just ruined, the lot of it.

Kazumi with her head hanging. Hair like a long, black veil.

’Kazumi.’

’Go back to your home.’

I left her then, with the smell of burning beef in the air and the flatmate’s cello coming through the walls and the unwanted champagne in my gut. It was not easy to leave her. But in the end, Cyd’s claim on me was stronger. Cyd had home advantage.

Whatever happened next, I had to be with my wife.

Even if the only thing left to say was goodbye.

Cyd was still at the hospital.

Peggy looked tiny in the hospital bed, a kind of protective tent above her plastered leg, her sleeping face grave and frowning. She was sitting up in bed, her head tilted to one side, as if she had only just nodded off.

At first I didn’t see Cyd. Then I noticed her on the far side of the bed, sleeping on the floor, between a couple of blue hospital blankets. It was after midnight now. I crouched by her side and she stirred.

’She woke up. In a lot of pain. They gave her a shot of something and it’s knocked her out. The nurse says she should be all right until morning.’ We both watched the sleeping child. She didn’t move. ’Not much is going to happen until then. Apart from, you know. All this. The waiting.’

’Come home for a bit, Cyd.’

’No, I couldn’t leave her.’

’Come home. Shower. Get some sleep. In your own bed. Some tea and toast, maybe. Come on. You’ll be stronger for tomorrow.’

She smiled wearily, and touched my arm.

’Thanks for sticking by me, Harry,’ she said, and I felt my face flush with shame.

’You were there for me,’ I said. ’When Pat was hurt. Remember?’

It was almost three years ago now. I could still see my son falling into that empty swimming pool, the dark halo of blood growing around his dirty-blond hair. That’s when I learned. That’s when I discovered that this world could take your children away from you. And Cyd was there for me. With Gina in Japan, getting her life back or discovering her true self or looking for love or whatever the fuck she was doing, there was nobody for me here. Apart from my parents, who would always be there. And Cyd, who could have been somewhere else. Somewhere a lot easier.

’Seems like a long time ago now,’ she said.

’Let’s go home, Cyd. Just for a few hours. Come on, you’re out on your feet.’

But there was something she wanted to say to me.

’I know you want to be free, Harry.’

’Not now. Not all this talk now. Please.’

’No, listen. I know you want to be free. Because all men want to be free, but you more than most. Maybe because you were such a young dad, such a young husband. And it all went wrong for you so young. I don’t know exactly why you want it so bad. But I know you dream of freedom – you wonder what it would be like with no wife, no kids, no responsibility. But what would happen if you were free, Harry? Do you know?’

’Let’s go home now.’

She smiled triumphantly. ’Because I know, Harry. I do. I know what would happen if you were free.’

’Cyd -’

’Listen to me. This is what would happen if you were free, Harry. You’d meet some girl, some sweet young thing, and you’d fall for her. You’d be crazy about her. And you’d end up somewhere not so different from where you are with me, where you were with Gina, where you were with every woman you ever loved. Can’t you see, Harry? If you’re capable of loving someone, then there’s never total freedom. There can’t be. You give it up. You give up your freedom. For something that’s better.’

I picked up her coat and helped her into it. We both stared at the sleeping child, reluctant to leave her. White on white, Peggy’s face almost seemed to disappear into the pillow.

’It wasn’t meant to trap you, Harry,’ Cyd said. ’The marriage, the wedding ring, me and Peggy. I know that’s how it made you feel, but it wasn’t meant to be like that. You and me – it wasn’t meant to make you feel trapped, Harry.’

’Let’s go home now, okay?’

’It was meant to set you free.’

I lay in my bed in the darkness, listening to the sound of the shower, then later her footsteps leading to the guest room. I didn’t notice she had come into our bedroom until she was standing by the bed. Her black hair wet and shining, her long legs bare, shivering a little in the chill of the night. And still wearing her green dress.

’It still fits, Harry,’ she said, and then she was in my arms. And then, as so often happens when illness and death are at the door, the urge for life never greater than when the alternative makes itself known, we made love as if we were an endangered species.

There are really only two kinds of sex in the world. Unmarried and married. Desire and duty. Passionate and compassionate. Hot and lukewarm. Fucking and making love.

Usually, in time, you lose one kind for the other. It happens. But you can always get the other kind back.

It’s like my mum said.

You just have to fall in love again.

twenty-eight

On Primrose Hill we said goodbye.

I would hardly have been surprised if she had never wanted to talk to me again. But there was something in her, a kind of generous formality – perhaps it was something Japanese – which let her come back just this once.

It was one of those clear bright summer days when London goes on forever. From Primrose Hill you could see the entire city, and yet the soft boom of the traffic seemed very distant. The real world felt a long way away. But I knew it was getting closer.

It was still very early. There were dogs and joggers everywhere, people rushing to work with a cappuccino in their hand, and the lights, those old-fashioned lamps that recalled some other lost city, another London, still shining weakly in the morning light all over Primrose Hill.

’Will you stay here or go back to Japan?’

’You can’t ask me that. You don’t have the right to ask me that.’

’I’m sorry.’

’Stop saying that. Don’t say that again. Please.’

She held something out to me. It was the Polaroid we had taken ourselves, holding the camera at arm’s length, laughing as though none of this would ever have to end.

’I used to think that if you took someone’s photograph, then you could never lose them,’ Kazumi said. ’But now I see it’s the other way round. That our pictures show us all that we have lost.’

’We’re not losing each other,’ I said. ’When two people care for each other, they don’t lose each other.’

’That’s a bollock,’ she said, her temper flaring. I couldn’t help smiling. She always mangled the language just enough to make it special. ’That’s a complete bollock.’

I shook my head. ’You’ll always matter to me, Kazumi. I’ll always care about you. I won’t stop caring about you if you’re with some other man. How can two people who have loved each other ever really lose each other?’

’I don’t know,’ she said. ’I can’t explain it, but that’s what happens.’

’I don’t want you out of my life.’

’Me neither.’

’Four billion people in the world, and I care about a handful of them. Including you. Especially you. So don’t talk as though we are throwing each other away.’

’Okay, Harry.’

’Together forever?’

She smiled. ’Together forever, Harry.’

’See you, Kazumi.’

’See you.’

I watched her walking down Primrose Hill, on one of those strange little paths that abruptly crisscross the park, pointing off in completely different directions, just like the impossible choices you are forced to make as you move through your life.

I watched her until she was gone, knowing that I would never stop wondering how it would have been if we were together, never stop caring about her, and never stop meeting her in dreams.

And just as she walked from the park and I finally lost sight of her, something happened, although I might have imagined it. It felt like the lights went out all over Primrose Hill.

I never saw her again.

My mum put on her Dolly Parton wig and went shopping.

The little neighbourhood store where she had bought her food for decades had recently closed down after the owner retired, and now she had to go to a huge hypermarket miles away. My mum actually preferred the hypermarket – ’Much more choice, love’

– but the bus service out there was almost non-existent, so once a week Pat and I would go with her in the car.

We were steering our trolley to the fresh meat counter when an old man with a solitary tin of cat food in his wonky wire basket collided with us. He had grey, three-day-old stubble on his sagging old-geezer chin and a cardigan that looked as though it had been feeding a good-sized family of moths. As I dusted down the shabby old man, I realised we had met before.

’Elizabeth!’ he cried.

It was Tex, although he definitely looked more like Graham today.

My mum nonchalantly tossed some organic bacon into her sleek bulging trolley. ’Oh, hello,’ she said, not deigning to call him by his cowboy name, or indeed any name at all. ’How’s the line dancing going?’

Tex exhaled with a grimace on his wrinkled face, rubbing his hip. ’Cracked me femur, Liz. Doing the Hardwood Stomp in Wickford. Had to lay off the old line dancing for a bit.’

He was staring at my mum as if she was Joan Collins on a good day. And it was true – she looked great.

It wasn’t just the big blonde country and western hair, or the weight she had lost. There was a confidence about my mum now, a hard-earned inner force that put a glint in her eye that had never been there before. Being unceremoniously dumped by this little old man was the least of it. She had survived far bigger blows than that.

’Well, you look… lovely,’ Tex said.

’Thanks.’ My mum smiled politely, looking at the wizened old man before her as if she couldn’t quite place him. ’Nice seeing you.’ My mum turned to Pat and me. ’Let’s roll, boys.’

’Maybe, maybe we could have a cup of tea some time,’ Tex stammered. ’If you’re not too busy.’

My mum affected not to have heard. So we left Graham and his lonely can of cat food by the frozen meat counter.

’You could have a cup of tea with him,’ I told my mum, although secretly I was proud of the way she had cut him down to size. ’He’s a harmless old man.’

’But he’s not my man, Harry. I forgot that for a while. Then I remembered. There’s only one man for me. And that’s the way it has always been.’

Pat and I struggled to keep up with her as her blonde head bobbed towards the checkout desk. And I thought – Dolly Parton would be proud of my mum. No matter what horrific surgery she had undergone, there was something inside her that was untouchable.

And as my car was pulling out of the parking lot, we saw Tex waiting for a bus in the drizzling rain. I knew better than to suggest we give him a lift.

My mum stared straight at him without expression, and for just a moment I thought she was going to stick up a finger or two. I knew in my heart she was far too polite for that. But if she had given Graham also-known-as-Tex the finger, I knew it wouldn’t have been the middle one.

It would have been the one right next to it, the third finger left hand, the one where she had never stopped wearing her wedding ring.

There were already three women waiting outside my mum’s house. One of them was in her forties, but the other two were younger than me. They all looked as though they had a world pressing down on them.

My mum let us all into the house. She didn’t have to tell me that these were some of the women that she counselled about breast cancer. They went into the living room with Pat while my mum and I made tea. I could hear the sound of the women laughing at something my boy had said. It felt as though they hadn’t laughed for quite a while.

’See that young one, Harry? She had the same operation as me. Same breast removed too. Scared to look at herself now. Imagine that. Afraid of the mirror. You can’t let that happen. You can’t be scared to look at yourself. They can talk to me. Because their family – the husband, the daughters, the sons – they want to be reassured. They don’t want the truth – they want reassurance. And they don’t have to reassure me. And they don’t have to be ashamed in front of me. Because I’m the same. And what have we got to be ashamed of? It’s not so bad. They’re shy. I’m older than they are, Harry, and I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. It’s made me stronger. It’s given me a funny kind of power. I’m not scared of this world any more. These girls – and I know I’m meant to say women, but they’re girls to me – they can’t tell their husbands how they feel. That’s okay. There’s no such thing as an uncomplicated life. I see that now. I loved your dad more than life itself. But we don’t need to tell everything to the person we’re married to. There’s no shame in that.’

’But maybe their husbands would understand,’ I said. ’You should try to understand each other, shouldn’t you? And if they really love them, then maybe they would understand.’

’Maybe,’ said my mum. ’If they really love them.’

’Can I ask you something? About you and Dad?’

’Go ahead.’

’Does it change? As the years go by, I mean. Should I expect my marriage to be something different from what it was at the start?’

My mother smiled.

’It changes all the time, it never stops changing. When you’re young you say – I love you became I need you. When you’re old it’s

– / need you became I love you. Big difference. And I’m not saying that one is better than the other, although the second one tends to last a bit longer. But you never stop loving each other, Harry. Not if it’s real.’ She took my hands. ’Look, Harry. Talk to her if you want to. Talk to Cyd. Tell her what’s been happening. Talk to your wife if you think it will help.’

’But I don’t know if I can. See, I want her to be proud of me, Mum. The way you were proud of Dad.’ I squeezed her hands. ’And I want you to be proud of me, too.’

’I’m proud of you already,’ said my mum.

Peggy came home, her plaster cast signed by every child on her ward. There was a way to go before she would be well enough to go back to school. But the fracture was mending and we went to bed that night weak with relief. Peggy was healing. And in a way that I couldn’t quite explain, so was I.

’I’ve got something to tell you, Cyd.’

’You don’t have to tell me anything. Just as I don’t have to tell you anything about Luke. Because there’s nothing to tell.’

’But I want to say something. It’s about what happened. How we lost each other for a while.’

’You don’t have to tell me a thing. Just rest your eyes.’ I felt my wife touch my arm in the darkness. ’You’re home now,’ she said.

twenty-nine

Life holds hostage all those we love.

That’s why it was so tough for my wife after Peggy came back home. Once you have seen your child in a hospital, you are never truly free again. Never really free the way you were in the past, not once you know how it feels to love a sick child, not once you realise how hard it is out there. Because you are never free from the fear that it could happen again, and next time be even worse.

And it was not just her daughter. There were late-night calls from Texas, where her sisters were worried about their mother, who had been found wandering around a parking lot in downtown Houston with a DVD of Gone With the Wind in her hand, no money in her purse and no memory of how she got there. ’Sounds like the start of old-timer’s disease,’ my mum said, and it was terrifying, one more thing for my wife to worry about.

So when we turned out the light one night and Cyd idly mentioned that she had missed her period, I thought to myself

– stress.

It does strange things to your body.

And when my wife woke up the next morning, running to the bathroom and retching although nothing came up, I thought to myself – poor kid. Worried sick about her daughter, and now worried sick about her mother.

And even then, standing outside the bathroom door, listening to my wife trying to throw up, even then I still didn’t get it. I still didn’t understand that it was happening all over again.

The best thing in the world.

I had seen one of these things before.

In fact, when Gina first found out about Pat, I saw dozens of them. There was nothing much to it. Just a white plastic handle. It looked as though it had something missing, like a toothbrush without the bristles.

I picked up the pregnancy test. It felt surprisingly light. And so did my head.

There were two tiny windows on the thing. In one of them, the little round window, there was a thin blue line. And in the other one, the little square window – which I somehow understood was the important one, the crucial one, the window that would change everything – there was another thin blue line.

And finally I understood. Not just the missed period and the sickness, but everything. I finally got it. I understood why I had to stay, and why I would always stay.

That’s when I sensed rather than heard Cyd in the doorway of the bathroom. She was laughing and crying all at once – I guess that must be standard procedure – wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her Gap T-shirt.

’Is this okay with you?’ she asked me.

I took her in my arms. ’It’s more than okay. This is great. This is the very best.’

Then my wife looked at me and smiled and, for perhaps the second time in my life, I knew why I was alive.

’Wait a minute,’ Eamon said. ’You’re staying with your wife because of some stupid wanker in a BMW? Is that what you’re saying?’

’I didn’t say that.’

’You said the accident changed everything. That she was packing her bags before that happened. She was leaving you, Harry, and you were ready to begin again with someone else.’

Would Cyd and I have split up if Peggy hadn’t had her accident? In my heart, I didn’t see what could have stopped us.

That’s how fragile all this is, as gossamer thin as a spider’s web, as intricate and fragile as that, meticulously built but easily Tom apart by a few cruel, casual blows. My parents’ marriage looked like it was made of sterner stuff. My mum and dad genuinely believed that they couldn’t be happy with anyone else. And I knew that wasn’t true for me. I could have been happy with Kazumi. Just as Kazumi could find the human bond we all seek with some other man. And just as Cyd could have found someone else to love her. That didn’t make what I had with my wife feel like nothing. In some ways the knowledge that either of us could survive without the other made what we had seem even more precious. We stayed together because we chose to stay together.

In a world full of choices, we chose each other.

’There’s the baby,’ I told Eamon. ’That’s the thing that really brought us back together. This baby we’re bringing into the world. We are going to be a real family. Maybe we were already.’

He didn’t look convinced. I knew he wanted certainty from me, cast-iron guarantees that love would last and marriage would endure.

But like my mum says – if you want guarantees, kid, buy a toaster.

’Listen, Eamon, the reason I’m still with my wife is not complicated. I’m with her because I love her.’

’Like you loved Kazumi? Or in a different way? A different kind of love, or exactly the same kind of love? I need to know. What if it had been the other way round, Harry? What if you had actually slept with Kazumi in Ireland? And you hadn’t slept with your wife back in London? What – and this is the big one what if the other woman was the woman carrying your baby?’

’Well, then -’

But I can’t answer.

The chaos that lurks just beyond all of our front doors is sometimes best ignored.

All the other women I could love, all the other lives I could lead, all the babies waiting to be born – I just can’t think about all of that today.

After all, I’m a married man.

The blood pressure was down. The hypertension was easing. The blood supply to my brain was not going to be cut off any time soon.

Good news, I thought. I want to see this baby grow up. I want to be around for long enough for this coming child to think that I am an old fool who doesn’t know anything about life. I want to live long enough to see my youngest child become an adult. That was the plan now. That was my new ambition.

Increasingly, it felt like the only ambition really worth having.

’It’s 135 over 75,’ my doctor said. ’Not bad. Not bad at all. You’re keeping your weight down… you don’t smoke… Getting plenty of exercise?’

’Thirty minutes of cardiovascular, three times a week.’

’That’s just about right. You don’t want to overdo it. These days the gym is killing as many middle-aged men as cancer and heart disease. How’s your salt intake?’

’Never touch the stuff.’

’Caffeine?’

’Well. Difficult to give up those cappuccinos. But I’ve cut right back.’

’Sometimes we have to stay away from the things we love, and learn to appreciate the things we need.’

And I saw my wife’s face before me. The black hair cut in a China chop, the wide-set brown eyes, and the toothy smile, the little nicks of laughter lines that were starting to appear around her small, sweet mouth. That face so familiar, that face so loved.

’But what if they’re the same thing? What if we realise that the things we love are the same as the things we need?’

My doctor grinned, packing her blood pressure kit away.

’Then you don’t need me any more,’ she said.

Peggy and I came through the gilded doors of the department store and were immediately assaulted by the perfume of a thousand different scents. The store was crowded, and we instinctively reached out and took each other’s hand.

’Look, Harry – free manicure! They do your nails and you don’t even pay nothing at all!’

’Maybe later, darling.’

We caught an escalator up to the department for children and babies.

So much had changed since the last time I became a father. Or perhaps Gina and I didn’t have the money to go shopping for every baby aid on the market. But a lot of this stuff was completely new to me.

A baby bouncer – okay, I recognised that, and vividly recalled Pat bouncing up and down like a little toothless Buddha, baring his gums with delight. But a cot-rail teether to stop a baby gnawing its crib – when did they start selling that? And a car toy tidy – surely toys were still just chucked all over the back seat? And look at all this other gear – a Nature’s Lullaby Baby Soother (plays four relaxing sounds to soothe baby to sleep), a Baby Bath Float (a soft cocoon shape to keep baby’s head out of the water and its body floating safely near the surface).

And shampoo eye shields – protective glasses for hair washing. Now that’s clever, now that’s a brilliant idea. Pat could have done with some of those. And look at this – a suction bowl. A strong suction base to prevent spillage at mealtime. The twenty-first century baby doesn’t even get to throw its food around.

’What will they think of next, Peg? Peggy?’

And that’s when I realised she was gone.

The fear ran through me like a fever.

I searched all over the children’s department, but she wasn’t there. And I thought of her father, who had gone on honeymoon and never come back, who had broken Peggy’s heart by going to live in Manila, to try his luck again on some other foreign shore, abandoning his child like she was nothing more than a bad debt.

Jim had deserted his daughter once and for all, and although it made life easier for me with him not around, his leaving had inflicted a wound on Peggy that she would carry for the rest of her life, a wound that would never heal, this beautiful child who deserved only to be loved.

And I wondered if I was really any different from him, any better than Jim, who always put his child way down on his list of priorities. Was I really a better man than that? Or so wrapped up in dreams of the new baby that I had forgotten about the reality of the living child by my side.

I searched the entire floor, doing frantic deals with God, praying for a second chance, desperately asking staff and shoppers if they had seen a small girl with a pink Lucy Doll backpack.

Then all at once I knew where I would find her.

She was on the ground floor, near those gilded doors, among the perfume of a thousand scents, patiently having her nails done for free in the make-up department.

’Hello, Harry,’ she said. ’Did you find what you were looking for?’

’Hello, gorgeous. Yes, I think we’ve got everything now.’

The white-coated sales assistant beamed at the pair of us.

’What a beautiful daughter you have,’ she said.

Peggy and I just smiled at each other.

There was a problem.

After eight weeks of the pregnancy, Cyd had some bleeding in the morning. And suddenly we didn’t know if our stake in the future was going to be taken away from us.

When Cyd went for her scan, there was a silver bowl of condoms by the door, as delicately arranged as potpourri. Seeing the question mark hovering above my head, Cyd said that the condoms were for the instrument the obstetrician put inside her, so we could see the baby. To see if it was okay. To see if our baby was still alive.

’My word, you’ve had some strange things inside you, girl,’ I said to my wife, taking her hand.

’But nothing quite as strange as your penis, Harry,’ my wife said to me.

Later, when the obstetrician arrived, Cyd sat in this complicated chair, like something British Airways might have in First Class, and on the TV screen by her side the doctor showed us the small pulsating light that was the heartbeat of our unborn child. The baby was fine. The baby was still there. The baby was going to live. Nothing could stop this baby being born.

Cyd squeezed my hand without looking at me – we couldn’t take our eyes from the screen – as the obstetrician showed us the head, comically large, like a light bulb made in heaven, and the tiny arms and legs, which the baby seemed to be crossing and uncrossing.

We laughed out loud, laughed with the purest joy at this miracle, this tiny miracle, the greatest miracle of all.

And I knew that this child would be loved like every child deserves to be loved, this baby who was our connection to the great unspoilt future, and our bond, our unbreakable bond, to what it means to be alive in this world, and – above and beyond it all – to each other.

thirty

When the weather was good and the sky was clear, my son and I lay on our backs in the garden of the old house, side by side, staring straight up, watching the stars come out.

Pat loved the stars now. Children change, they change so fast, they change even when you are looking at them. After watching a documentary that held him spellbound every Wednesday night for six weeks, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader and Han Solo finally had to make some room in his expanding imagination for the Pole Star and Sirius and Vega.

’Dad?’

’What is it, darling?’

’Bernie Cooper says that the stars are all dead people looking down on us. And guess what? One of them, right? One of them is Bernie Cooper’s granddad.’ A pause. We kept staring up at infinity. Inside the house I could hear soft, female voices – my mother and one of the women who came to visit, wanting to talk, looking for their future. ’Is that true, Dad?’

Td like to think so, Pat.’

’Then what I’d like to know is – which one is my granddad?’

And I knew that my father would have loved this boy.

My dad would have loved watching Pat’s new teeth coming through, loved his obsession with the stars, loved his devotion to his grandmother and Bernie Cooper and Britney the dog newly arrived in the country, and settling in very nicely, amiably roaming around all those big London parks – loved the curious, open-hearted kid that my son was growing to be. Horses and stars. My son was enchanted by horses and stars, and my father would have been enchanted by that.

A hard man for as long as I could remember, the hardest man in the world, my dad had never seemed quite so hard after Pat was born. Perhaps that’s what grandchildren are for

– to allow you to give unconditional, unchanging love one last time. Something frozen deep inside my father began to thaw on the morning that Pat was born, and I knew that my dad would have continued to soften with the passing of the years, and with the coming of the new baby.

We just ran out of time, that’s all.

’Pick the biggest star you can see,’ I told Pat. ’Pick the brightest one. And that’s your grandfather watching over you. And that’s how you will always know.’

The stars are like photographs. You can read into them what you will. You can believe that they measure all you have lost, or you can believe that they represent all you have loved, and continue to love.

I guess I’m with young Bernie Cooper on that one.

As we watched the stars I thought of the twin babies that Gina had lost at ten weeks, the unborn children who would be with her always, the poor, tiny ghosts of her marriage.

And I thought of my own ghosts.

’Do you remember my friend Kazu?’ Gina said one morning when I went to pick up Pat, Britney enthusiastically sniffing at my crutch, Gina still pale and drawn from her loss, and finally ready to tell me that she had known all along. ’She got married, Harry. Back in Japan. Kazu met the man of her dreams. She got stuck in an elevator with him in the Ginza. Just going for dinner, and there he was. Never can tell, can you? Never can tell when it’s going to strike.’

It was a postcard from another life, a map of a road not taken. And I knew that I wanted for Kazumi exactly what my ex-wife wanted for me, what we all want for our former partners.

Happiness, but maybe not too much of it.

As I heard my son breathing by my side, watching the stars above, I thought of my three children.

The boy, the girl, the baby.

The two born, the one unborn.

I looked at the stars and thought of Peggy and Pat forming an orderly queue to feel Cyd’s gently expanding belly, Peggy open-mouthed with awe as she tried to feel the baby’s tiny, miraculous movements, and then, when it was his turn, Pat smiling secretly and murmuring to himself, ’Oh, the Force is strong in this one.’

Soon this modern family would be even more complicated, full of half-brothers and stepsisters and stepbrothers and halfsisters and step-parents and blood parents.

But now I finally saw that it was up to us if we felt like a real family or not. Nobody else mattered. The labels they stuck on us meant nothing at all.

There was a real family here if we wanted it. Anything else, well – as an old friend of mine used to say, it’s all a bollock.

’Look at you two layabouts,’ laughed my mum, padding into the garden, her last visitor gone home to her family. My mum swung a pink carpet slipper at a plastic football and sent it flying into my dad’s rose bushes.

Our cosmic reverie broken, Pat and I got up to play threegoals-and-you’re-in with my mum. It was getting quite dark now, one of the last days of an Indian summer, but the suburban night was soft and warm and starry, so we were reluctant to go inside.

And so we stayed out in the garden of the old house until we couldn’t see to kick a ball, laughing in the gathering twilight, making the most of the good weather and all the days that were left, our little game watched only by next door’s cat, and every star in the heavens.