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

‘Your record with Marty Mann speaks for itself,’ the commissioning editor said. ‘Not many radio shows can be made to work on television.’

‘Well, Marty’s a brilliant broadcaster,’ I said. The ungrateful little shitbag. May he rot in hell. ‘He made it easy for me.’

‘You’re very kind to him,’ the series editor said.

‘Marty’s a great guy,’ I said. The treacherous, treacherous little bastard. ‘I love him.’ My new show’s going to blow you out of the water, Marty. Forget the diet. Forget the personal trainer. You’re going back to local radio, pal.

‘We hope that you can have the same relationship with the presenter of this show,’ the woman said. ‘Eamon’s a talented young man, but he is not going to get through a nine-week run without someone of your experience behind him. That’s why we would like to offer you the job.’

I could see the blissful, crowded weeks stretching out ahead of me. I could imagine the script meetings at the start of the week, the minor triumphs and disasters as guests dropped out and came in, the shooting script coming together, the nerves and cock-ups of studio rehearsal, the lights, cameras and adrenaline of doing the show, and finally the indescribable relief that it was all over for seven more days. And, always, the perfect excuse to avoid doing anything I didn’t want to do – I’m too busy at work, I’m too busy at work, I’m too busy at work.

We all stood up and shook hands, and they came with me out into the main office where Pat was waiting. He was sitting on a desk being fussed over by a couple of researchers who stroked his hair, touched his cheek and gazed with wonder into his eyes, shocked and charmed by the sheer dazzling newness of him. You didn’t get many four-year-olds in an office like this.

I had been a bit worried about bringing Pat with me. Apart from the possibility of him refusing to be left outside the interview room, I didn’t want to rub their noses in the fact that I was currently playing the single parent. How could they hire a man who had to lug his family around with him? How could they give a producer’s job to a man who couldn’t even organise a babysitter?

I needn’t have worried. They seemed surprised but touched that I had brought my boy to a job interview. And Pat was at his most charming and talkative, happily filling the researchers in on all the gory details of his parents’ separation.

‘Yes, my mummy is in abroad – in Japan – where they drive on the left side of the road like us. She’s going to get me, yes. And I live with my daddy, but at weekends I sometimes stay with my nan and granddad. My mummy still loves me, but now she only likes my dad.’

His face lit up when he saw me, and he jumped down off the desk, running to my arms and kissing me on the cheek with that fierceness he had learned from Gina.

As I held him and all those television people grinned at us and each other, I glimpsed the reality of my new brilliant career – the weekends spent writing a script, the meetings that started early and finished late, the hours and hours in a studio chilled to near freezing point to stop beads of sweat forming on the presenter’s forehead – and I knew that I would not be taking this job.

They liked the single father and son routine when it had a strictly limited run. But they wouldn’t like it when they saw me buggering off at six every night to make Pat’s fishfingers.

They wouldn’t like it at all.

I called Gina when Pat was staying overnight with my mum and dad. I had realised that I needed to talk to her. Really talk to her. Not just shout and whine and threaten. Tell her what was on my mind. Let her know what I was thinking.

‘Come home,’ I said. ‘I love you.’

‘How can you love someone – really love them – and sleep with someone else?’

‘I don’t know how to explain it. But it was easy.’

‘Well, forgiving is not quite so easy, okay?’

‘Christ, you really want to see me crawl, don’t you?’

‘It’s not about you, Harry. It’s about me.’

‘What about our life together? We have a life together, don’t we? How can you throw all that away because of one mistake?’

‘I didn’t throw it away. You did.’

‘Don’t you love me any more?’

‘Of course I love you, you stupid bastard. But I’m not in love with you.’

‘Wait a minute. You love me, but you’re not in love with me?’

‘You hurt me too much. And you’ll do it again. And next time you won’t feel quite so much guilt. Next time you’ll be able to justify it to yourself. Then one day you’ll meet someone you really like. Someone you love. And that’s when you’ll leave me.’

‘Never.’

‘That’s the way it works, Harry. I saw it all with my parents.’

‘You love me, but you’re not in love with me? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Love is what’s left when being in love has gone, okay? It’s when you care about someone and you hope they’re happy, but you’re not under any illusions about them. Maybe that kind of love is not exciting and passionate and all those things that fade with time. All those things that you’re so keen on. But in the end it’s the only kind of love that really matters.’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re going on about,’ I said.

‘And that’s exactly your problem,’ she told me.

‘Forget Japan. Come home. You’re still my wife, Gina.’

‘I’m seeing someone,’ she said, and I felt like a hypochondriac who has finally had his terminal disease confirmed.

I wasn’t surprised. I had spent so long being terrified that finally having my worst fears realised brought a kind of bleak relief.

I had been expecting it – dreading it – ever since she had walked out the door. In a way I was glad it had happened, because now I didn’t have to worry about when it was going to happen. And I wasn’t so stupid that I thought I had the right to be outraged. But I still hadn’t worked out what to do with our wedding photographs. What are you meant to do with the wedding photographs after you split up?

‘Funny old expression, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Seeing someone, I mean. It sounds like you’re checking them out. Observing them. Just looking. But that’s exactly what you’re not doing. Just looking, I mean. When you’re seeing someone, well, it’s gone way beyond the just looking stage. How serious is it?’

‘I don’t know. How do you tell? He’s married.’

‘Fuck me.’

‘But it’s not – apparently it hasn’t been good for ages. They’re semi-separated.’

‘Is that what he told you? Semi-separated? And you believed him, did you? Semi-separated. That’s a suitably vague way of putting it. I haven’t heard that one before. Semi-separated. That’s very good. That just about covers any eventuality. That should allow him to string both of you along nicely. He can keep the little wife at home making sushi while he sneaks off with you to the nearest love hotel.’

‘Oh, Harry. The least you could do is wish me well.’

‘Who is he? Some Japanese salary man who gets his kicks by sleeping with western women? You can’t trust the Japanese, Gina. You think you’re the big expert, but you don’t know them at all. They don’t have the same value system as you and me. The Japanese are a cunning, double-dealing race.’

‘He’s American.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say? That’s even worse.’

‘You wouldn’t like anyone I got involved with, would you, Harry? He could be an Eskimo and you would say – “Ooh, Eskimos, Gina. Cold hands, cold heart. Steer well clear of Eskimos, Gina.”’

‘I just don’t understand why you’ve got this thing about foreigners.’