Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’More,’ said Peggy.

Just once more,’said Jim.

’No more,’ said Cyd, lifting Peggy from the bike. ’Oh, MumV

Jim sighed elaborately. ’Same old Cyd.’ ’Enough,’ I told him.

The groom looked at me, his smile all gone, and I realised that it was the first time that day he had actually looked me in the eye.

’Enough?’ he said. ’Enough, did you say? Who are you to tell me enough, pal? She’s my daughter.’ ’I live with her,’ I said.

He sneered at me. ’Yeah, but not for much longer, right?’ I looked at Cyd and she looked away. So she had told her ex-husband about us. And I suspected that this show of happiness – the themed wedding, the crowd of friends on our doorstep, the Evel Knievel routine with Peggy – had less to do with his daughter than with his first wife.

We can resist every temptation with our old partners, apart from telling them how happy we are now.

’I know about you, Harry,’ Jim said. ’You’re no parent to Peggy. You’re not even a father to your own son, are you?’

I looked at Pat. He was covering his ears. I didn’t know if it was because of the bikes or Jim.

First Luke Moore, now Jim. The world was full of people who thought they had a better claim on my wife than me. And maybe what made me so angry was that I knew it was my own fault they felt that way.

’You’re a jerk, Jim. You’ve always been a jerk and you always will be. You love your daughter, do you? You’re a good dad, are you? It takes more than inviting her to your latest wedding.’

’Stop it, you two!’ Cyd shouted, putting Peggy on the ground. She began shoving Jim away. Just go, will you? Just go. Liberty, tell him to go.’

But Jim wouldn’t budge. He was acting all indignant, as if he had restrained himself with me for years, but was finally going to tell me what was on his mind.

’I’ll be glad when you’re out of Peggy’s life,’ he told me.

I pushed my face close to his. I could smell cheap champagne and Calvin Klein. ’You think you’re in her life, do you? Coming round when you feel like it and then not a word ffor weeks? You call that being in a child’s life?’

Cyd was screaming now. ’Go! Go!’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Peggy ancd Pat backing away. They were holding hands. Both of them were crying. A couple of the wedding guests were dismounting tlheir bikes and giving me meaningful looks. It was getting nasty/.

And that was when Peggy stumbled from the jpavement, let go of Pat’s hand and fell into the road.

She was immediately hit by a car.

The impact spun her around and dumped her back on the pavement, her legs still sprawling in the road. THiere was dirt all over the top of her bridesmaid’s dress. Christ nco, not again, I thought, remembering Pat with his head split ‹open at four years old, sprawled at the bottom of an empty swirmming pool. I stood there stunned as Cyd rushed to her daughteir. Somebody was screaming. Then Liberty was on her knees, pmshing Cyd aside. A nurse, I thought. She’s a nurse.

I looked at the white-faced driver of the car. He w;as about my age, but in a suit and tie, driving a brand-new BMW^. He hadn’t been going fast – just crawling past the unbroken liines of cars, looking for a precious parking space – but he mustt have been doing something with his mobile phone, because it was still in his hand, playing a speeded-up version of ’Waltzimg Matilda’. Not watching the road well enough to avoid hitting a little girl who fell right in front of him without warning. There was a slight dent in his nearside bumper.

Cyd was screaming and crying, trying to hold heir daughter while Liberty pushed her away with one hand, anid cradled Peggy with the other. Jim was pulling at me – trying to get me out of the way, trying to hit me, I coulldn’t tell. And Liberty was shouting at someone, but I couldn’t work out who, and then I got it. It seemed strange to me that, out of all the people she could be addressing, Liberty was talking to the BMW driver with the mobile playing ’Waltzing Matilda’.

’Ambulance,’ she said. ’Call an ambulance!’

I wondered what had been so important. A text message from his girlfriend, I thought. He’s just like me.

In his own little dream world, hurting everyone around him.

Peggy fractured her leg.

That was it. That was all. And that was bad enough -1 hope I never see a child in that much pain again – but we sat in the back of the ambulance knowing that she could have been killed.

A greenstick fracture, the doctor at the hospital called it, meaning an incomplete break of the bone. The outer shell of the bone was intact, and the fracture was inside. The doctor said that a greenstick fracture is what children get, because their bones are so flexible. The bones of adults just break in two. Give them a hard enough knock, and adults just fall to pieces.

They gave her a CT scan even though her head wasn’t bruised, and it was clear. They gave her junior painkillers, put her in plaster and hiked up her leg in a kind of hammock that sat on top of her hospital bed. She was soon sitting up and gazing imperiously at the other residents of the children’s ward.

It wasn’t like Pat’s accident. She was never in any lifethreatening danger. But I still glimpsed a vision of a world where something unspeakable had happened, and it made my blood run cold.

There were five of us sitting by her bed. Jim and Liberty. Cyd and Pat. And me. Drinking bad tea from Styrofoam cups, not talking much, still numb with shock. After screaming at each other in the street, we might have felt embarrassed to be here together, if relief had not overwhelmed every other emotion. When the doctor came to the bedside, we all jumped to our feet.

’We’ll keep her with us for a while,’ he said. ’What we’ve done is reduce the fracture, meaning the broken ends have been restored to their natural position, and now we just have to hold the reduced fracture in place while it heals.’ He patted Peggy on the head. ’Do you like dancing, little lady?’

’I dance very well, actually,’ Peggy said.

’Well, you’ll soon be dancing as well as ever.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jim glance at his watch. He and Liberty had a plane to catch. When the doctor had gone, the bride and groom said their goodbyes and rushed off to the airport. Then there were just the three of us.

We stayed by Peggy’s bed until night had fallen and she had slipped into sleep. Cyd put her arms around Pat and me, and that somehow seemed to be the signal to release all the pent-up tension of the day.

Keeping the noise down so we wouldn’t disturb Peggy and her sleeping neighbours, Cyd and Pat and I held on to each other as we all cried with relief.

And for the very first time in my entire life, I couldn’t tell where my family ended, and where it began.

I still went to see Kazumi.

Despite everything that had happened.

And as she buzzed me through the front door, I wondered how can you do it? How can you come to see this girl when Peggy is in the hospital? And, not for the first time, I wondered what my father would have thought of me.

But I knew I was there simply because it was easier than not being there. I had taken Pat to my mum’s, wanting to spare him from Gina and Richard’s latest reconciliation, and cancelling Kazumi would have been harder – more excuses, more lies – than just turning up late for this appointment with my secret life.

There was nothing I could do at the hospital. Once the initial shock had passed, Cyd even seemed a little embarrassed to have me touching her – holding her, cuddling her, trying to comfort her. Inappropriate, she seemed to feel, what with all those half-packed suitcases waiting for her in the guest room. We had come too far apart for all that. What good would I have done at the hospital? I couldn’t even hold my wife’s hand.