Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’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.’