THE CHILD

Not so much about the child but the jealousies of a man who should be old enough to know better

Tommy wanted to be the perfect husband and father until he met his son Oliver one dark night on the stairs, face to face, and decided that fatherhood was possibly not for him. Until that altercation he’d merely suspected that he disliked the child, but that night was enough for him to know the two of them would never get on.

And Oliver was only four.

It was 1970 and Lydia was going out. She said it was “with the girls” but Oliver, who couldn’t go with her to make sure because someone had to babysit the boy, suspected there might be more than just “girls” involved.

There was Terry, and Terry was one of those beatnik types who smoked strange herbal cigarettes and sang Donovan songs badly. Terry wore jeans whatever the occasion, had a worn and stained leather jacket which nobody had ever seen him take off and hair so long you could plait it and call it a rope if you felt so inclined… and after half an hour with his strange herbal cigarettes Terry might let you.

All that might signify that Terry was a huge character oozing fun and a challenge to the status quo as well as the olfactory sensibilities of the local constabulary when he lit up. But that wasn’t what worried Tommy.

Terry had been a really close school friend of his and back then Terry had been the sort of guy to get whatever it was he wanted, no questions asked and no eyelids batted. He’d never been short of girls, which he often winked and joked about whilst puffing unfamiliar smoke into the world. And now, in these complex latter days with a child in the house Terry seemed to want Lydia.

It might be suggested that Tommy was developing a sort of paranoid fixation on things that might cause his cosy world to implode, and that would be perfectly understandable. After all he’d had a purple fit when Lydia had suggested she got a job in order to supplement their income because, in all honesty, his own earnings were pretty meagre and although her needs were really very modest they weren’t always being met with the boundless immediacy that she thought was right and proper. But if she got even a part time job Tommy would have to play his part in bringing up their child. He’d have to, and that much was that much.

He would have to become a New Man and learn to do new manly things, like cook and clean and care for Oliver while she was at work, which would be in the evenings, at a really popular bar, where she would be employed because she was both capable at dealing with money with wonderful accuracy and startlingly attractive, which the landlord saw as a prerequisite in his female staff.

So that caused him to have a purple fit, which didn’t affect things at all because Lydia took the job anyway and their joint income rose. It also meant that he got used to doing the mundane things involved in child care, like bathing and tucking up in bed at the earliest possible time. Therefore he had become reasonably adept at being a New Man and should have seen no problem when Lydia announced she was going out with the girls this one particular night because it was so-and-so’s birthday. Except he did see a problem because at the end of their road and lurking like a sky-high hippie almost floating off the ground was the figure of Terry.

“There’s that Terry down there,” he muttered to Lydia. “Standing around like a tramp. What is he like?”

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” she replied, brushing her hair.

“What do you mean?” he growled, “the man’s a layabout and a drunkard!” Which he knew wasn’t strictly true because Terry had always been proud of his teetotal tendencies. But Tommy felt spiteful. He was staying in and Lydia was off out with her friends, and he worried about what girls got up to when they were together.

Then she dropped the bomb shell.

“He’s coming out with us,” she told him, “Margie invited him.”

“You mean, he’s one of the girls?” he asked, “you mean he’s lost his willy and become a fairy?”

“I mean he’s going with Margie because it’s her birthday,” she sniffed, and pulled her coat on. “What do I look like?” she asked.

“A tart!” he replied, vindictively.

“There’s no need to be like that,” she said, coldly

“It’s you he fancies. It’s you he’s always fancied, ever since he found out I was going with you,” he growled. “If he’s going out with you and your immoral mates it’s because he’s got his mind on your knickers and not theirs!” he added.

“That’s utter rubbish, and you know it!” she threw back at him. “Jealousy ill-becomes you, and is bloody unworthy of you.”

And she went out. Like that, with the aroma of a metaphorical touch-paper glowing in the air all around him.

“Daddy,” chirruped Oliver, choosing that moment to further upset the man who was watching his wife giggling along with two other young women as they walked towards Terry, who he was sure must be grinning like the buffoon that he was.

“That’s enough from you,” he growled. “You’re as bad as your mother, you are. You both hate me. You both take me for granted, and I do my best, but the trouble with you two is my best is never good enough.”

Oliver understood, all right. After all, he had the wisdom of the four year old, and that’s a dangerous thing for older folks to underestimate.

“Is mummy with uncle Terry?” he asked, innocently.

What’s this? Since when have you had any sort of relative called Terry, let alone an uncle, you sly little… “B*****d!” he exploded.

Oliver chose that moment to turn and run up the stairs, giggling as if he’d said something so hilarious he needed a high point in the house from which to repeat it.

“You little swine!” grated Tommy, and the anger ran from his eyes and down his cheeks. This was it, an inner voice told him, this is the end, this is what it’s like when the light of your life flickers and goes out and all your own son can do is rub verbal salt into the wound.

And he ran up the stairs, taking them in twos, and caught his wretched son half way up or, as he thought afterwards when he came to explain the boy’s broken leg to Lydia, half way down.

He was right about one thing, though.

When it came to flinging insults and threats over the days and weeks to come there was always the laid-back Terry there, catching his fair share of them whilst Oliver stood besides him and, using his big eyes and puzzled face asked Uncle Terry what it was all about.

© Peter Rogerson 13.12.16