Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’Yes, I know what it’s like.’

’You get lonesome. You do. No matter how much you love them, you get lonesome. And it’s hard to meet new people. It’s really hard, Harry. And I’m not even sure I want to go through all that crap. Dates – God, spare me from dates. Who’s got the energy for all that crap at our age?’

’I bumped into Richard. Did he tell you?’

She nodded, but there was nothing in her eyes to indicate that she knew about Kazumi and me. So Richard had kept my secret. Or perhaps he truly didn’t care.

All he wanted was his wife back.

’It wasn’t so bad between us,’ Gina said. ’The move was tough. And trying for a baby and not getting one – that was even tougher. But we’re going to have a crack at IVF.’

’Fertility treatment?’

She nodded. ’They give me drugs to produce a large number of eggs. Richard has to – you know – masturbate.’

Shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Richard.

I stared at her. One minute she was finished with this guy, and the next minute her ovaries were working overtime to have his baby. I didn’t understand her at all. Is who we share our life with really so random? Is it so easily Tom down, and then put back together?

Gina mistook my silence for doubts about fertility treatment.

’It’s all the rage these days, Harry. In some fertility clinics, the really good ones, you have a better chance of conception with IVF than you have with regular old-fashioned shagging. It’s true.’

’I don’t know, Gina. I heard IVF treatment is expensive. And doesn’t always work.’

’Maybe going through it will make us stronger. Make us a real husband and wife. Isn’t that what we all want?’

’But you don’t love him any more, Gina. You can’t just be with someone – be married to them, have a baby with them because you’re feeling a bit lonesome.’

’Can’t you? What am I supposed to do? Wait for Mr Right to come along? Not enough time, Harry, not enough energy. Sometimes this is what I think – the person you’re with is just the person you’re with. That’s all. End of story. It’s no more than that.’

’You old romantic.’

’It’s not so bad. You’re partners. You stick together. You support each other. So it’s not like one of the old songs – so what? A grown-up can’t go around falling in love all the time like some dumb-ass teenager. What kind of mess would that make of your life?’

’You don’t choose who you fall in love with.’

’How naïve you sound. Of course you choose, Harry. Of course you do.’

I liked to think that we were friends. And I liked to think that I still cared about her. That I would always care about her. But this caring for my ex-wife, it only went so far. In the end, my thoughts always came back to the same place.

’What about my boy?’

’Your boy?’ she said. ’Your boy, Harry? You should have thought of your boy before you banged some little slut from your office, shouldn’t you?’

And all at once I saw that there’s no one on this planet more distant than someone you were once married to.

’Man gets on a crowded flight,’ said Eamon, roaming through the smoky gloaming. ’Plane’s totally full. But the seat next to him, the seat next to him is empty.’ Hand to mouth, little Woody Allen cough. ’Thinks – wonder who I’m going to be sitting next to? As you do, right? Then the most beautiful woman he ever saw in his life comes down the aisle. The face of an angel and legs up to her neck. Sure enough, she sits right down in the seat next to our man.’ Hunched in the spotlight. The crowd paying attention. ’The guy finally works up the courage to talk to her. ”Excuse me? Excuse me? Where are you headed?” ”Oh,” says she, ”I’m off to the Kilcarney Sex Convention. I lecture on the subject. Dispel some of the myths surrounding sex.” ”Like what?” ”Well, for example,” says she, ”many people believe that black men are more generously endowed than other men. And in fact it is Native American men who are more likely to reveal that physiological trait. And then popular wisdom has it that French men make the best lovers. Whereas statistics show that Greek men are far more likely to give sexual pleasure to their partners.” Then she blushed. ”But I’m telling you all this, and I don’t even know your name.” The guy reached out his hand. ”Tonto,” he said. ”Tonto Papadopolous.”’

And as the crowd laughed, I could see myself in that man, and in that punch line.

It had never been in my plans to become the kind of man who lies without even having to think about it. That had never been the kind of man I wanted to be. My father had never been that kind of man.

But by now I found I needed to lie just to balance the demands on my time. It was madness.

Just call me Tonto. Tonto Papadopolous.

As Cyd helped Peggy into her bridesmaid’s dress upstairs, and Pat sat on the carpet watching the horse racing on Channel 4 that kid would watch anything, I swear – I sneaked down to the bottom of the garden to call Kazumi on my mobile.

We were meeting for dinner. That was the schedule. And this simple thing – a man having dinner with a woman – had to be planned in utmost secrecy, as though we were doing something illegal, or incredibly dangerous. And I was sick of it, to tell the truth. I would be glad when all the sneaking around was over. Not long now.

When I went back into the house Peggy was standing at the top of the stairs, grinning from ear to ear, wearing her bridesmaid’s dress.

’How do I look, Harry?’

’Like an angel.’

And she did. Just like a little angel. And I felt a stab of regret that this child who I had watched grow up would soon be out of my life forever.

She ran back into the bedroom with some instructions for her mother about the flowers she was wearing in her hair while I went into the living room and sat next to my son. He was still staring blankly at the race meeting on the box. Sometimes I worried about this kid.

’You want to see what else is on, Pat?’

He grunted a negative, not looking at me.

Pat had come home with me because his mother had things to discuss with his – what was Richard these days? His exstepfather? His future stepdad? The designated sperm donor to his half-siblings? I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with my ex-wife’s soap opera. But then who was I to feel superior?

At least everything that Gina did was out in the open.

’I didn’t know you were a gambling man, Pat,’ Cyd said, coming into the room.

’Horses,’ Pat said, turning his face to look up at Cyd. ’Horses are so beautiful.’

I felt a stab of guilt. So he wasn’t gawping mindlessly at the box. The horses enchanted him. Why hadn’t he told me that? Why had he saved this revelation for Cyd? Was it perhaps because I hadn’t asked him?

She smiled and sat down on the floor with him. ’Horses are beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said. ’There’s a – what would you call it? – nobility, I guess. Yes, there’s a nobility about horses.’

’A what?’

’Nobility.’ She turned to look at me. ’How would you define nobility, Harry?’

’Dignity,’ I said. ’Decency. Goodness.’

Like you, I thought, looking at the woman I had married. Dignity, decency and goodness. Just like you.

Not that Cyd resembled a horse.

She put her arm around my boy’s shoulder and watched the horses with him and I realised that she had always been good with him – kind, patient, loving even. So what had been the problem? The problem had been me, and not being satisfied with her kindness, patience and love.

The problem had been me all along, and wanting Cyd to be something that she could never ever be.