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Dad! Dad! I came top in the History test, Dad! Terry took us bowling, Dad, and I won a trophy, Dad! We both did!
Their happy voices are one of my most favourite sounds on earth.
My other favourite sounds aren’t suitable for polite conversation.
Terry wraps an arm around my ex-wife’s shoulders, making a right old fucking show of it. It all seems a bit primitive to me – his male-ego need to paw at something in order to demonstrate ownership.
I don’t need to drape myself over a woman to show she belongs to me. It’s all in the eyes. In hers, in mine. If a woman truly belongs to you it’s written all over her. She smells of it. It’s in her smile. In the flutter of her lashes. In the way her body pulls towards yours, like a magnet. A charge.
Claire was like that with me once upon a time.
Now she’s gripped awkwardly under Terry’s arm while he shows off like a cockerel in a coop.
The boys stay attached to me as I head towards the woman who used to wear my ring on her finger. My hand is already extended, and Terry takes it, squeezes overly hard, and I wonder again just what he’s lacking down below to require such a macho shake.
Claire doesn’t take my hand.
“We need to talk,” she tells me. “Later.”
I don’t hide the glance at her belly. “News, I gather. I don’t need it spelling out.”
She shifts her weight onto her hip. “Not that, Alexander. About the boys. It’s important.”
I ruffle their hair and resist the urge to flip her the finger. Her prickly tone infuriates me, trying to stab little holes in the few measly hours I get with them every weekend.
“Fine,” I tell her. “Later.” I smile my fake professional smile. “Terry.”
He nods. “Alexander.”
I step away before they take up any more of my precious fucking time.
I TAKE the boys for dinner at a tasteless burger joint just off the A3 they’ve insisted on frequenting every Sunday these past few months. The coffee is bitter and thoroughly disgusting, and the burgers taste too cheap to be edible, but the boys love it here.
Terry takes them, apparently.
Good for fucking Terry.
I wrap my godawful excuse for a meal in a napkin when they aren’t looking. Brutus will get considerably more enjoyment from it than I will.
I wait until the boys have wolfed down their fries and shakes before I pull the tickets from my jacket pocket.
I’ve been waiting all week for this, for the sweet wash of happiness I’ll feel when their eyes light up in recognition. I have the seats marked out on a map of the stadium on my phone, a 360 degree view of the ground so they’ll know exactly what we’re heading for.
I slap the tickets down in front of them with a flourish, and my heart is thumping.
Joy.
It feels quite alien these days.
“I’ve booked us the very best seats,” I tell them. “Right at the front. We’ll see everything, and after the game I’ve got us backstage passes. We’ll meet the players, get you some photos.” I’m smiling, and they’re staring, and I’m waiting for the moment, the moment when their faces light up.
But it doesn’t come.
Their smiles are weak and fucking awkward, and it stabs at me, right in the fucking gut.
“What?” I ask, and there’s a brutality to my tone that I didn’t intend. I take a breath.
It’s Thomas who spits it out. “It’s the twenty-second…”
“Yes. Four weeks today.”
“But we’re…” He looks down at the table. “We’re going to the football… with Terry… we were going to tell you today… Terry said to wait, until he definitely had tickets, said maybe you could come on Saturday instead, or–”
“Or what?”
He doesn’t want to say it, and I feel like an asshole for pushing when I know what’s coming.
“Or what, Thomas? What did Terry say?”
It’s Matthew that answers, his eyes so big and innocent. “He said maybe you could miss a week, for the football. He said maybe you wouldn’t mind.”
Cunt.
Terry is a fucking cunt.
“I didn’t realise you boys liked football. Rugby’s your game, no?”
Thomas doesn’t answer, but Matthew shakes his head. “We like football now, Dad. Thomas says football’s better. Cooler, isn’t it, Thomas?”
Thomas looks fucking mortified.
“Well?” I prompt. “Is football cool now? Cooler than rugby?”
Thomas shrugs. “They’re both good. But we support Portsmouth now, like Terry. It’s his team. He got us shirts.”
I feel the tick at my temples. The sour taste of rejection.
“I see,” I say, and pull the tickets back to my side of the table.
“Sorry, Dad,” Thomas says, and he is sorry. I wish he wasn’t. I wish he’d look me straight in the eye and admit he thinks rugby fucking stinks now and he’d much rather eat shitty burgers with Terry than me.
“Sorry, Dad,” Matthew says.
I choke down my disappointment. “Some other time, then. When the games don’t clash.”
They nod. Matthew slurps the remnants of his shake. Thomas folds his napkin into little triangles.
It’s really fucking awkward, all of it. This shitty place. This shitty weekend arrangement. This shitty situation with their cool new dad.
“Are you angry?” Thomas asks, and it makes me smile. Direct. I like that.
“Disappointed,” I tell him. “Not angry.”
I have no intention of forcing their priorities into an order I approve of, that’s not in my make-up.
The boys gather up their burger boxes and put their coats back
on, and I guess we’re done here. Allotted time counting down to zero.
“Let’s go and give Brutus his burger,” I say.
ONCE THE NEW football thing is out in the open, the boys can’t get enough of it. I hear all about it on the drive back – the Portsmouth team, their cruddy uniform, their goal-scoring history.
I try to care, but all I feel is the unholy rage in my stomach. The desire to tell Terry exactly what I think of his ill-considered loyalty test.
And I do tell him, just as soon as I’ve stepped over their twee little threshold and Claire’s sent the boys to their rooms.
“Classy move,” I comment, “booking up a football match on my day with the boys.”
He acts the innocent, all flustered as he tells me he didn’t know I had plans, thought one weekend wouldn’t matter.
“Every weekend matters,” I assure him.
“I’ll give you the money,” he blusters, “for the tickets.”
Like I want his fucking money.
He’s living in the house I pay for, driving the fucking car I pay for, standing on the fucking carpet my money paid to have fitted, and he has the fucking audacity to offer me a refund on the day he’s stolen from me.
Cunt!
Claire clears her throat and puts a hand on his arm. She’s nervous and it’s not about the fucking game.
“We need to talk,” she tells me. “Terry and I, we, um, have plans…”
“I can see that.” I raise an eyebrow. “I imagine the new addition was planned too.”
“The boys wanted a younger brother or sister. Tyler, too.”
Tyler. Terry’s drop-out teenage son has the perfect name for his flunky personality.
“I’m glad they’re getting what they want.”
“They want us to be a proper family,” Claire says, and it pangs. A proper family. One without me in it. “They’re close to Tyler now, and Thomas, well, he wants to be like his cool older stepbrother, wants to go to a regular school like he does, so we thought… next term… we thought we’d move the boys into Grange High. It’s close, and the results are good…”
I’m shaking my head before she’s even finished, my brows heavy and my jaw gritted.
