‘Dad, it’s fine. Please don’t make a fuss,’ Esther hisses at him.
‘Did they hurt you?’ her mum asks.
‘No.’ Esther shakes her head. ‘They didn’t do anything really.’
‘They just shouted at you?’
‘Yes, Mum.’ Esther nods.
‘Well, I hope you gave as good as you got, darling,’ she says.
‘What did they say?’ her dad wants to know.
‘Nothing really.’ The waiter is heading back towards them, and Esther quickly rescans the menu, deciding now to have the snout terrine. She doesn’t care what it is as long as it doesn’t snort at her.
‘Well, that’s good, honey,’ her mum says, arranging her expression into a beaming smile as she looks around at all of them. ‘C’mon, darling, it’s Christmas Eve. Let’s all try and cheer up, shall we? D’you know people wouldkillto get a table here?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
JAMES
Maybe I focused on all the wrong things as a dad. Things like Esther eating a proper dinner after school – with a vegetable component – and doing her homework (even though it was optional) and going to the dentist every six months. I knew Rhona was more relaxed about that stuff, and I probably came across as a bit regimented. Maybe I was overcompensating for us splitting up, trying to make everything seem ‘normal’ with Esther hopping back and forth between our homes, although she always seemed okay about it. I mean, as far as she’d ever let on. Yes, she’d been upset at the time of the break-up, but she’d seemed to adjust quickly without too much emotional fallout.
It had been Rhona’s decision to split up. It came out later that she’d been seeing someone else; not Luc but a man who’d been a regular customer at her tapas bar and had become a friend and then, well, a lover, obviously. ‘It’s just a physical thing,’ she’d explained at the time. Great, I thought furiously. As long as there are no emotions involved. Just tons of illicit shagging while I was at work!Yes, I was angry and hurt and felt like a colossal fool for not spotting the signs. I’d loved Rhona. We’d been together since we were nineteen years old.
But actually, once the dust had settled, I came around to thinking that perhaps she’d been right. Not to have an affair, obviously – but in that we weren’t right together anymore. We’d grown up in different directions, and the gap between us had only widened over the years. ‘Why won’t you take a risk, James?’ she’d cry in frustration when she’d wanted to blow our savings by investing in her friend’s crazy venture. At least, I thought it was crazy. But, hey, maybe the world needed an all-year-round Easter shop. (‘Why not?’ Rhona had retorted. ‘There are Christmas shops, and who doesn’t love chocolate?’) That was Rhona all over: the loud, vivacious entrepreneur. And me, squeezer of Jack Russells’ anal glands, apparently.
Although there’s abitmore to it than that. Before we closed the practice for Christmas I’d come up with several prototypes for the tortoise’s leg splint. I’d been looking forward to telling Esther about them tonight over dinner, before it all kicked off, as she’s always enjoyed hearing about the less everyday aspects of my work. (‘Tell me again about the guinea pig’s ear tumour, Dad!’)
Of course we hadn’t got around to tortoises’ leg splints. We’d just battled through the meal as best we could. Not that I felt like eating after hearing that those arsehole boys had hassled Esther in the street. And Rhona just brushed it off, her main concern being that it was dampening our festive night out! I admire Rhona, and think she’s brilliant in so many ways. But sometimes – like tonight – she frustrates the hell out of me.
So, yes, I do wonder if I’ve got it wrong over the years because, surely, if I’d been a better dad, then we could have sat there and talked honestly, and comforted Esther– instead of making her feel worse. As it was, Rhona was pissed off because we weren’t ‘being jolly’ and Luc kept enthusing loudly, ‘This food’s great! I can see why there’s been such a fuss about it …’ Meanwhile Esther had cried, then continued to fight back more tears, while I’d gone quiet. (I know it drives Rhona mad when I do that.) Is anything more depressing than a family all herded together and each person hating it in their own particular way?
We parted company, having sent Esther back to Miles’s in an Uber. (She’d batted off my suggestion to stay at mine instead.) I told the others I was going to walk for a bit, ‘just to get some air. Then I’ll call a cab.’
But I was lying. I felt so bad about Esther that I craved strong alcohol and now I’ve found myself swerving into a bar. Not a cool bar like Forage, with a young bearded guy snipping up rosemary sprigs, but a loud, brash party place filled with huge groups all shouting and exchanging gifts. At a rough estimate fifty per cent are wearing some kind of festive headgear: Santa hats, reindeer antlers, tinsel deely-boppers. Crammed against the bar, I ask for a large gin and tonic and gulp it down.
I order a second one and replay the parts of the evening when I really should have stepped in – like when Rhona was picking on Esther about her phoney plant-based persona. (Shouldn’t we have been trying to cheer her up rather than getting at her?) Why, I’m wondering now, as I make headway on that second drink, did I go tonight anyway?
The plan had been for me to head out to Lauren’s and spend Christmas Eve with her. The pub gathering had sounded fun, and I’d been looking forward to it. Then Rhona had booked the restaurant and of course I’d jumped to bloody attention as I always do.
I finish my drink, wishing Lauren was here. Becausewhen I’m with Lauren I just feel good, so lucky and happy to have met this wonderful woman when, back in July, it had looked like my holiday was going to be a washout. And it strikes me now that this kind of life isn’t normal – this planning a holiday with your daughter and her just not coming, and being unable to enjoy a nice family meal on Christmas Eve without Esther crying and Rhona insisting that everyone ‘cheers up’ and tries a bit of the thing she ordered, the vile-looking lump made out of duck blood, whatever the fuck that was.
Feeling pretty pissed now, I make for the exit. I’ve done it all wrong, I decide as a man in a velour elf suit bounces in through the door, blowing a whistle. I should have been stricter and laid down the law – about the things that really mattered. Never mind Esther eating vegetables and having her teeth checked twice a year without fail. There’d have been no going to Willow Vale, no taking part in a reality TV show. As I step out into the cold night air, I try to imagine how I might have pulled that off; what references I might have drawn on in order to form my ‘firm but fair’ dad persona.
My own father had been kind and smiley, my overriding memories involving him being mainly on his hands and knees on the carpet, playing Lego with me. Living with my aunt and uncle was very different. My uncle was far too distant to have been anything like a father figure. He hadn’t had kids; apparently they’d never wanted them. He seemed to spend most of his time at the bowls club or hiding away in his shed.
Is it too late now to try and be a better dad? I think of Lauren and Charlie, just the two of them all these years. I know he can be a bit hard to reach, and Lauren worries about how he’ll handle adult life when he leaves home. But he’s a decent boy, he works hard, he has thatnewsagent’s job but he also swots like mad, up till all hours, huddled over his science books. A rush of drunken guilt hits me as I catch myself comparing Esther to Charlie; so disloyal of me. Was Rhona right when she said I hadn’t been supportive enough over that two-hundred-word essay she’d been asked to write by the jewellery people? My phone rings and I swipe it from my pocket, primed for another drama.
‘Hey, sorry to call so late,’ Lauren says. My heart lifts instantly.
‘That’s okay. It’s not late. I mean, I’m still out. Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m just back from the pub,’ she says. ‘Lovely night. Really fun. But I missed you.’
‘I missed you too,’ I say truthfully.
‘I just wanted to tell you that,’ Lauren says, and I know she’s smiling. ‘So, where are you right now?’
