Tony Parsons - The Complete Man and Boy Trilogy - Man and Boy, Man and Wife, Men From the Boys

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The perfect read for Father’s Day, Tony Parsons’ bestselling series, MAN AND BOY, MAN AND WIFE and MEN FROM THE BOYS.In MAN AND BOY, Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. And in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. This book tells the story of Harry learning what words like love and family really mean.In MAN AND WIFE, Harry Silver is learning to juggle his many commitments - to his wife and his ex-wife, to his son, his step-daughter and his mother, to his own work and his wife’s career. And then someone walks into his life who is going to make it even more complicated…In MEN FROM THE BOYS, Harry Silver is settled and happy. But can it last? He is soon about to turn forty and his ex-wife is back in town. Soon it could be time to kiss the good life goodbye…

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He stood up, the colour draining from his face. His eyes were wet. He took off his glasses to wipe them. I couldn’t stand to look at him.

‘You’ve ruined my life,’ he said.

‘What?’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My marriage falls apart and he becomes the victim? How did that happen? I was sorry that his precious daughter-in-law had walked out of his life. I was sorry that his grandson had seen his parents break up. And most of all, I was sorry that his son had turned out to be just another dumb schmuck bumbling towards the divorce courts. But I wasn’t going to let my father hog the starring role in our little tragedy.

‘How have I managed to ruin your life, Dad? If anyone’s the victim here, it’s Pat. Not you.’

‘You’ve ruined my life,’ he said again.

My face burned with shame and resentment. What was he so bitter about? His wife had never left him.

‘Your life is over,’ I told him angrily.

We looked at each other with something approaching hatred and then he walked out. I could hear him shuffling around upstairs. I was already sorry about what I had said. But I felt that he had given me no choice.

‘He doesn’t mean it,’ my mum said. ‘He’s upset.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Nothing bad ever happened to me before, Mum. I’ve had it easy. Nothing bad ever happened to me before now.’

‘Don’t listen to your father. He just wants Pat to have what you had. Two parents. Somewhere settled and stable to build his life. All that.’

‘But it’s never going to be like that for him, Mum. Not if Gina’s really gone. I’m sorry, but it’s never going to be that simple.’

My dad came back down eventually and I tried to give them some background as we waded through dinner. There had been trouble at home, things hadn’t been too good for a while, we still cared about each other. There was hope.

I left out all the stuff about me fucking a colleague from work and Gina feeling that she had thrown her life away. I thought that might make them choke on their lamb chops.

When I left, my mum gave me a big hug and told me that things would turn out all right. And my dad did his best too – he put his arm around me and told me to call if there was anything they could do.

I couldn’t look at him. That’s the trouble with thinking your father is a hero. Without saying a word, he can make you feel that you are eight years old again, and you have just lost your first fight.

‘Our guest next tonight no needs introduction,’ Marty said for the third time in a row. ‘ Fuck…fuck…fuck …what is wrong with this pigging autocue?’

There was nothing wrong with the autocue and he knew it.

Up in the gallery, the director murmured soothing words into his earpiece about going for the rehearsal again when he was ready. But Marty tore off his microphone and walked off the floor.

When we were live, Marty had always been fearless in front of an autocue. If he made a mistake, if he stumbled over the words rolling before him, he just grinned and kept going. Because he knew that he had to.

Recording was different. You know you can always stop and start again if you are taping. This should make things easier, of course. But it can paralyse you. It can do things to your breathing. It can make you start to sweat. And when the camera catches you sweating, you’re dead.

I caught up with him in the green room where he was ripping open a beer. This worried me more than the tantrum on set. Marty was a screamer, but he wasn’t a drinker. A few beers and his nerves would be so steady he wouldn’t be able to move.

‘Recording a show is a different rhythm,’ I told him. ‘When you’re live, the energy level is so high that you just zip through it from beginning to end. When you’re recording, the adrenaline has to be more controlled. But you can do it.’

‘What the fuck do you know about it?’ he asked me. ‘How many shows have you presented?’

‘I know that you don’t make it easier by ranting about the autocue girl.’

‘She’s moving that thing too fast!’

‘Yes, to keep up with you,’ I said. ‘If you slow down, so will she. Marty, it’s the same girl we’ve been using for a year.’

‘You didn’t even try to keep the show live,’ he sulked.

‘As soon as you smacked Tarzan, all this was inevitable. The station can’t take a chance on that happening again. So we do it live on tape.’

‘Live on fucking tape. That says it all. Whose side are you on, Harry?’

I was about to tell him, when Siobhan stuck her head around the door of the green room.

‘I’ve managed to find a replacement for the autocue girl,’ she said. ‘Shall we try again?’

‘We’re watching telly-vision,’ Pat told me when I arrived at Glenn’s place.

I picked him up and kissed him. He wrapped his arms and legs around me like a little monkey as I carried him into the flat.

‘You’re watching TV with Mummy?’

‘No.’

‘With granddad Glenn?’

‘No. With Sally and Steve.’

In the little living room there was a boy and a girl in their mid teens tangled around each other on the sofa. They were wearing the kind of clothes that don’t look quite right without a snowboard.

The girl – thin, languid, blank – looked up at me as I came into the room. The boy – podgy, spotty, blanker – tapped the TV’s remote control against his lower teeth and didn’t take his eyes from a video of an angry man with no shirt on, a singer who looked as though he should be helping police with their enquiries. Glenn would know who he was. Glenn would have all his records. He made me wonder if music was getting crap or I was getting old. Or both.

‘Hi,’ the girl said.

‘Hi. I’m Harry – Pat’s dad. Is Gina around?’

‘Nah – she went to the airport.’

‘The airport?’

‘Yeah – she had to, you know, what do you call it? Catch a plane.’

I put Pat down. He settled himself among the Star Wars figures that were scattered over the floor, shooting admiring glances at the spotty youth. Pat really did love big boys. Even dumb, ugly big boys.

‘Where did she go?’

The girl – Sally – frowned with concentration.

‘To China. I think.’

‘China? Really? Or was it Japan? It’s very important.’

Her face brightened.

‘Yeah – maybe Japan.’

‘There’s a big difference between China and Japan,’ I said.

The boy – Steve – looked up for the first time.

‘Not to me,’ he said.

The girl laughed. So did Pat. He was only little. He didn’t know what he was laughing about. I realised that his face was dirty. Without a bit of encouragement, Pat had a very cavalier attitude to personal hygiene.

Steve turned back to the television with a satisfied smirk, still tapping the remote control against his lower teeth. I could have cheerfully stuffed it down his throat.

‘Do you know how long she’ll be gone?’

Sally grunted a negative, absent-mindedly squeezing Steve’s beefy leg.

‘Glenn not around?’ I said.

‘Nah – my dad’s at work,’ said Sally.

So that was it. The girl was one of Glenn’s abandoned kids, from a marriage or two after Gina’s mother.

‘You visiting?’ I asked.

‘Staying here for a while,’ she said. ‘Been getting a lot of hassle from my mum. Whining about my friends, my clothes, the time I come home, the time I don’t come home.’

‘Is that right?’

‘“You’re treating this place like a hotel,”’ Sally screeched. ‘“You’re too young to smoke that stuff. Blah blah blah.”’ She sighed with the weariness of the very young. ‘The usual. It’s not as though she didn’t do it all herself back in the dark ages, the hypocritical old bitch.’

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