Dan

The first drag tasted like ashes, but Dan held on to his cigarette nevertheless. He leant against the wall next to M&S, feeling the heat in the bricks. 

He should probably call her. Send a message or a text. But what could he possibly say? “Good luck” “Hope it all goes well”

A couple paused by the stone fountain. The young man was adjusting a large flannel thing that hung over the hood of a pram (did they call them prams?) and she was pulling tiny socks off tiny feet beneath the canopy. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but the way they both leant in, their total absorption, spoke volumes. He had silvery hair, cropped, showing a sunburnt neck. She was petite, in a pretty dress, long, almost to the floor, with a low neckline that momentarily held Dan’s attention. She wore a silver necklace.

Dan always noticed jewellery. And necklines.

The couple perched on the low fountain wall. She rested her hand on the handle of the pram as if someone might dash by and snatch the thing away.

Babies! He’d had a lucky escape.

He lifted his cigarette to his lips, drew deeply on it and felt the same shock of burning as before. Maybe he wouldn’t go back to the fags after all. Stick with the poncy vape. At least they had real flavours, besides ashtray.

He pulled his shirt sleeve up to look at his watch, caught by how blindingly the sun glanced off it. It cheered him, his watch. A bonus well spent, despite what she had said.

“We’re going to need every penny we can scrape together and you blow all that (- she’d jabbed her finger with each word-) on a bloody watch!” (another jab).

He’d gone out then, down the pub. There was no one there he knew of course. A midweek night in the suburbs and all his mates were safely tucked up with the respective Mrs’s, ready meal in front of the telly, a couple of glasses of cheap Rioja (two for one offer in Asda). Which was where he should have been, only this had happened. And anyway, Rosy wasn’t his Mrs.

She wanted to be, he knew that, even more so now but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Go on, put a ring on it!” the lads in the office joshed. “It’s not as bad as you think. It has its perks!” 

But two years together and he still hadn’t and it looked like he wasn’t going to now, either.

He took the stairs back up to the office, two at a time, feeling the breath catch in his throat as he neared the third floor.

“Your dad rang,” Colin called from the photocopier as he slung his jacket over the back of his chair.

“Wants you to call back.”

His dad was possibly the last person Dan wanted to talk to. Recently resurrected in Dan’s life, he acted like they had so much more in common than they actually did. What’s more, he behaved like the previous absence of twenty one years had simply not happened. Like he’d been there all the time, standing on the touchline in the freezing rain on Sunday mornings; blowing up balloons and practising tricks for the birthday parties he never came to; working at long division at the kitchen table with a worn down pencil and a wry smile.

But no. He hadn’t done any of it. He’d left it all to Mum, working two jobs to keep food on the table, arriving home late every evening (“Did you have your beans love?”), never able to make parents’ evening, totally oblivious to the fact that he was sinking fast in a ruthless school system that didn’t accept “My Mum’s never at home” as a valid reason for not doing his homework or having the right kit.

He stared at the screen on his desk. There were orders outstanding he needed to process by the end of the day, but his mind wouldn’t focus.

His Dad had a look about the eyes that was familiar, the only thing really he recognised in him. Creases at the corners and dark lashes, a deep indigo ring around the cornflower blue iris. It scared him. “A chip off the old block.”

He turned his wrist so he could look at his watch again then checked the time on the computer screen. 4.30pm. He probably should at least text her.

“Everything all right mate?” Brian paused as he passed Dan’s desk, a pile of boxes in his arms.

“You don’t look too clever.”

Dan looked up and breathed out heavily.

 “Yeah. No – actually I don’t feel too clever.” He patted his belly, taught beneath the pinstriped shirt. “Probably something I ate.”

It was a spur of the moment response that reaped the reward he didn’t realise he wanted until it came:

“Better go home then mate. We’ll finish up here.”

He was standing at the cashpoint, his card in his hand. The woman in front was tutting, punching each key. He wished she’d hurry up. He wasn’t sure what he was about to do but he felt jumpy, like he’d drunk too much coffee from the machine.This woman was stoking the tension rising in his chest.

He looked out across the street, the sun dipping behind the tall office block opposite. A woman walked by, long hair plaited down her back, a low cut t-shirt barely covering soft, pappy breasts. She wore a nose ring. A boy was half walking, half running beside her trying to keep up. He held a phone in both hands, staring down at the screen as he stepped out on the zebra crossing. Dan looked back to the ATM where the woman was now cursing so he didn’t see the clout but he heard it.

“You weren’t even bloody looking!” The woman with the plait was on the other side of the road now, bending down, her face almost touching that of the boy’s, yelling.

He was crying, great sobs heaving out of his chest.

“And you can stop that ‘n’ all!”

Dan didn’t look, either, as he stepped out across the road, reaching the woman in two strides, just as her hand was rising once more.

“Hey, stop that!” He would have grabbed her wrist but she lowered her hand as soon as he spoke.

“He’s just a kid,” Dan said, his voice lowered, feeling suddenly exposed and foolish. 

“What’s it got to do with you?” She grabbed the boy by the arm and turned him sharply in the opposite direction, hurling over her shoulder:

“You’ve got NO IDEA so mind your own fucking business!”

Dan stood by the side of the road, shaking. Everything was blurred. He watched as the child scurried off down the street, his mother maintaining her grip on his upper arm, still leaning in, still shouting.

“Some people don’t deserve to have children,” The woman from the cashpoint had crossed the road and was heading off down the street. 

“No,” said Dan, and found it came out as a sob.

She stopped and peered into his face. “Oh love, are you all right?”

“I just, it’s just …I’m sorry,” Dan said, turning and walking briskly away. He ducked into a side alley, stumbled past a couple of industrial bins, into a pile of folded cardboard where he slumped down, his back against the grimy bricks, his head in his hands.

As he closed the door of the flat behind him, he noticed the echo the sound made. Rosy had taken most of her things, helped by her sister, a tall beefy woman with eyes that narrowed whenever she looked at Dan,(and that was even before this calamity). He’d stood with his back pinned to the wall in the sitting room, noticing for the first time how the setting sun reflected in all of the windows in the block opposite, as Rosy and her sister pushed past him with boxes and bin liners and the little pink wheelie suitcase Rosy always took when they went away.

He sat on the armchair he’d rescued from a skip. She’d hated it from the start which was lucky otherwise he’d have just about nothing left to sit on. Only a few of Rosy’s things remained. A mirror which hung by the door and the canopy she had rigged over their bed. Some little ornaments and trinkets from a trip they took to Porto shortly after they moved in together.

Everything she owned mattered to her, had a meaning. “This belonged to my grandmother” “I had this when I was a child.” He couldn’t understand the attachment, especially not to things like a moth eaten teddy bear or a lace doily. There were two small pictures left hanging in the alcove beside what used to be a chimney. He got up and went to study them more closely. One was a boat in a harbour, a copy of something, the signature bold and ostentatious. The other was quieter, and on peering at it he thought it might be an original. It was a watercolour of a garden, with tall flowers and greenery trailing the edges of a little path. In the middle was an apple-cheeked mother in an apron, redolent of the turn of the last century. She was leaning down to hold the outstretched hands of a plump toddler, who was smiling broadly. It was a scene of such saccharine charm that Dan was surprised to feel tears welling up.

He stood at the window looking out at the flats opposite. A woman was hanging curtains, on her own, reaching up and threading the tabs onto a pole. Rosy wanted to put curtains up here but Dan had vetoed it. He’d always liked the clean, uncluttered lines of his windows and besides, they were so high up they couldn’t possibly be overlooked. He had never understood her desire to make a home, for them both. A home was something he had never really had.

He was sitting on a green wooden bench in the little park around the corner from the flat. He shivered slightly. It wasn’t cold, but the sinking sun seemed to suck the warmth out of the day, taking it down beyond the horizon of tower blocks and offices. He had a bottle of whisky in his bag. He’d bought it at the offy thinking he would drink it that evening, in front of the telly. He thought he might have a swig or two now, to ward off the chill, but it felt exposed here in the park. Children were still playing on the swings. He might look like a perv, downing whisky on a bench in a kiddies’ playpark.

Over to the right, a mum and dad were watching their plump toddler. He was wearing blue sandals and baggy denim shorts, sucking earnestly on a dummy. He was chasing a pigeon across the brown grass, his little legs wavering with each step until inevitably he fell, plump on his nappied bottom. He looked around him for a moment and then a grizzle started up, but it quickly changed to a gurgling giggle as his father took his chubby little hands and lifted him onto his feet. The man kept hold of his son’s hands as he walked him over to the little war memorial, and then round and round it, going up and down the steps, the child placing each foot deliberately and looking up, craning his neck to see his father’s face. He had a mop of blond curls and looked Dan full in the face as he passed, standing on tippy toes, clutching his father’s fingers. He beamed.

Dan looked at his watch and felt the icy tip of steel run up his spine. It was 7pm. It would all be over by now.

“You’ve got a nerve, showing your arrogant face here!” Rosy’s sister kept the door half shut as she squinted out at him.

“I know,” he said. His eyes pricked with tears. “I just wanted to check that Rosy is OK.”

“OK?” she snorted. “OK?”

He heard Rosy’s voice from behind her sister. “It’s OK Jane. I’ll talk to him.”

They walked slowly along the pavement, past the line of parked cars. It was that time of day when people had lights on in their living rooms but didn’t feel the need to draw the curtains. Dan noticed smart book shelves and minimalist colour walls, and in one house a massive chandelier dwarfing the neat black sofa beneath it.

The square behind Rosy’s parents’ house was bordered by tall shrubs. The gate swung open with a creak and they headed for the bench they had sat on so many times when they were first together. 

Dan put his hand out to hold hers. 

“I’m really sorry Rosy,” he said, looking straight ahead at the cherry tree that held centre stage in the gardens. “I should have been there for you.”

“Yes you should.” she said.

He drew a deep breath. 

“It’s just,” he began, feeling tears welling again, a prickling in his nostrils. “It’s just it was such a shock.” He scuffed at the gravel with his shoe.

“All my life, I’ve vowed I wouldn’t have kids.” He swallowed. “I mean, what kind of a father would I be? I never knew my own dad, my mum was almost never there, I’d just be hopeless -” he stopped, as his mouth filled with tears.

“Is this all about you then?” she asked, taking her hand away.

He turned to her. “No, no, of course not. I’ve been an idiot. I wish I could make it all better. I just – “

They sat for a while, the birds above them singing their evening songs. 

Dan looked down at his hands. They were like his Dad’s, too he noticed.

“I didn’t realise,” he said. “That you were building me a home.”

“I guess I was, yes.” She put her hand to her belly, still smooth and flat beneath her jeans.

“And a family.”

They looked over to the cherry tree, its blossom strewn around the grass. A squirrel appeared, the hairs on its long tail quivering as it bounced across the garden and shinned up the trunk of the tree.

“We could be a family, Dan,” she said, speaking into the dimming light. 

He turned his head towards her.

“It’s not too late.” she said, her gaze still straight ahead of her. He watched the fronds of hair that had escaped from her ponytail as they played about her face in the evening breeze.

“But I thought today was the appointment for,” he hesitated, frowned. “You know?”

Rosy breathed deeply and closed her eyes.

She sighed and said: “I couldn’t go through with it.” 

For a moment, Dan’s head filled with bees. He turned towards her, leaning in, trying to form a question. 

She opened her eyes, looking straight at his, and said:

“I didn’t do it Dan. I couldn’t.”

He slipped to his knees in front of her and took both her hands in his.

“Oh Rosy! That’s just the best news ever!”

“Really?” She pulled a face. “I thought you’d be horrified.”

“No, no,” tears filled his eyes. “Rosy, I’m probably going to be a crap dad, but I know you can show me how to do it properly.”

“I think you’ll make a brilliant Dad actually,” she said,  Once you get used to it.”

“Rosy,” he said, smiling. “Rosy, will you marry me?”