Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted you.’

’But why?’

’Because you’re a good father.’

In the garden of the old house, there was an air of real excitement.

We were excited because Pat was flying back to America in the morning, and my mother and I were desperate to make every hour special.

And we were excited because it was the first really hot day of the year, and I had stretched a long piece of plastic sheeting down the length of the garden, which my mum hosed down until it was as slippery as an ice rink.

But mostly the excitement was because of our very special guest.

Bernie Cooper was with us.

As I heard the pair of them happily jabbering upstairs as they changed into their swimming trunks, I realised that I should have arranged this earlier in the week. Bernie Cooper and Pat should have spent more than one day together. But I was so anxious for Pat to see my mum, and Cyd, and Peggy, and even old Glenn, that I almost forgot to schedule time for the person he wanted to see most of all. So on the night before the last day, I called Bernie’s parents, and got permission to take him out to my mum’s place. We were going to see a movie, have a kickabout in the park, and go for a pizza. But the sun shone as if it was already summer, and the two boys never left my mum’s back garden.

They spent the long hot afternoon skidding across a watersoaked piece of plastic. Bernie as dark as Pat was fair, fearless where Pat was careful – Bernie sliding on his stomach, hurtling down the strip of plastic and into the rose bushes – and loud where Pat was quiet. So different, and yet somehow perfect together.

My mother and I watched them for hours, their thin, wet limbs skidding across the garden, my mum occasionally hosing down the sheet of plastic, telling them to be careful when they clattered to the ground while running across the wet grass to do it all over again, smiling to herself as the boys almost exploded with laughter. Bernie Cooper and Pat, seven years old, and a day that they wished could last for the rest of their lives.

And I knew that my son would make other friends. In Connecticut. In the new neighbourhood. At big school. At college. He was a likeable boy, and he would always make new friends. Maybe never quite as good as this one, maybe never quite as good as Bernie Cooper, but they would still be real friends. No matter how much it hurt, Bernie would have to let him go. And so would I.

My mum came with us to the airport.

Pat took her hand when we got off the Heathrow Express, the tourists and businessmen swarming all around us, and it was almost as if he was taking care of her, rather than the other way around. When had that changed? When had my mum become old?

We found the British Airways desk and handed Pat over to a smiling stewardess. She seemed genuinely happy to see him. People were like that with Pat. They were always happy to see him. An easy child to love.

I crouched by his side at the departure gate and kissed his face, telling him we would see each other again soon. He nodded curtly. He wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t sad. But he seemed a long way away, as if he was already back in his other life.

My mum gave him a hug that squeezed the breath out of him. The young woman from British Airways took his hand. It was only then that my son seemed concerned.

’It’s a long way to go,’ he said. ’It will take me all night to get there.’

’Just rest your eyes,’ said my mum.

I remembered the day that I took Pat to see his grandfather in the hospital, when it was near the end and the breath wouldn’t come any more and I thought that my father and my son should see each other one last time. The loss of our grandparents, I thought, that’s usually the first time we understand that life is a series of goodbyes.

And as my son took the hand of the girl from British Airways, I wondered if my mum and Pat would ever see each other again.

’As you know, the station has the highest regard for Eamon Fish,’ Barry Twist told me in the snug of the Merry Leper.

That sounded like trouble.

’He’s funky. He’s spunky. He’s cutting edge,’ gushed Barry. ’He’s hot. He’s cool. Research shows that, among ABC males in the eighteen to thirty club, he’s the comedian of choice.’

’You wait until Eamon’s back in Ireland to tell me all this?’

Eamon was resting. I thought of him on a farm in County Kerry. He had been there for weeks now, where the mountains met the sea, and where there was no chance of Eamon meeting his cocaine dealer.

The waiter came.

’Glass of champagne. Two, Harry? Two. And some nibbles. Peanuts, rice crackers, crisps.’

’Nor for me.’

Too much salt in those things. Poison for your blood pressure. I had to worry about all that old-man stuff these days. And losing my job. I had to worry about that, too.

’We want to come back,’ I said, switching into producer mode. ’Eamon Fish is the most important comic of his generation. Keeping him off air is a crime against broadcasting.’

’It’s not quite that simple,’ said Barry Twist.

’Why not?’

’Well, our research shows us also that a majority of AB males between twenty and forty in the south-east quite like the fact that Eamon has been – you know – resting. The advertisers are not quite so keen. The Big Six – beer, cars, soft drinks, sporting equipment, personal grooming and finance – don’t want to be associated with someone who was so recently… exhausted.’

’Speak English, damn you.’ ›!

’The Colombian marching powder. The Charlie. The hokey- cokey. It’s changed Eamon’s image, kid. He used to be this I loveable Irish rogue with a taste for weather girls. Now he’s not quite so loveable. And not quite so hot.’

He tossed a paper on the table between us. ’You seen this thing in the Trumpet? Evelyn Blunt on Eamon Fish. Actually it’s a piece about the death of the new comedy.’

’Evelyn Blunt’s a wanker. A bitter, twisted hack who hates the world because he never quite made it as a – what was it he wanted to be? A novelist? A human being?’

’I quite like Evelyn Blunt. He’s waspish, he’s irreverent, he’s m controversial.’

He foraged around in a bowl of nibbles.

Any tosspot with a PC can make a minor splash and six figures by being waspish, irreverent and controversial.’

’Six figures? Really? That’s not bad. I mean, his column can’t take him very long, can it?’

’He’s always had it in for Eamon. Jealous twat. What did the fat, oily bastard write this time?’

Barry Twist wiped the crumbs from his fingers and put on his reading glasses.

’ For a generation of comedians -whose careers are receding faster than their hairlines -’

’That’s rich. Evelyn Blunt is no oil painting. It’s always the ugliest fuckers who are always going on about someone’s physical appearance.’

’- Eamon Fish was the poster-boy of cutting-edge, stand-up comedy. But now Fish is ”resting”. The edge is dull. And the roaring boys of open-mike night just can’t make it stand up the way they did way back in the nineties. Then he starts getting personal. Headline Waiter, There’s a Fish in a Stew.’

’Those that can, do,’ I said. ’Those that can’t, become irreverent critics.’

’How is the lad? Doing well? Chilling out?’

’He’s anxious to get back to work. To get back to his show.’

’The show.’ Barry’s eyes roamed the Merry Leper. He waved half-heartedly at someone he knew. ’Of course, of course.’

’Is there a problem?’

’No problem. Just a slight change of plan.’

He let the words hang between us.