Page 71 of The Last Train Home
Chapter 47
Tom
July 2008
Today is Teddy’s second birthday. He wakes up late and Samantha and I have to go and nudge him out of his little bed, because she needs to leave for work. He’s spending the day with me. I’ve pulled a sicky, as I’m not permitted holiday leave yet. It’s a bit underhand and Samantha doesn’t approve, but I reason that when Teddy eventually starts school it’ll be illegal – or some such shit – to pull him out for his birthday, so it’s only this once. And maybe next year too. We’ll see.
But today I’ve suggested the park, with Andy and his son, Oliver. Andy needed no encouragement to skive off work, and so the four of us are meeting in an hour, after we’ve done presents and cards. Teddy’s not interested in his birthday cards – only the ones with badges appear to cut the mustard. And he rips the paper off his presents and delights in the Peppa Pig toys and Fireman Sam paraphernalia. My star present is a goal for the garden, and he goes outside to find it with bows and ribbons that I left Samantha to tie on. He wears his ‘2’ badges on his T-shirt and we wave Samantha offfor work, after she’s winced her way through half a grapefruit and a coffee.
Then it’s just me and Teddy, and we play football in the garden for a bit, taking turns to be in goal, before it’s time to meet Andy.
Andy brings a beer each and we stand in the sunshine, kicking a football between us and the little ones, feeling very smug with ourselves for being out in the middle of a working Monday with our children.
‘How’s the job going?’ he asks.
‘Better than the last one.’ I kick the ball to Oliver and watch as he and Teddy kick it back and forth between themselves, missing and having to chase it around the park. Andy and I have just been benched from the team by a couple of two-year-olds.
‘What is it you do again?’ Andy asks me for the third time since I’ve known him.
‘Analyst,’ I tell him. I should have said, ‘Astronaut’, to see if he was paying attention any of the previous two times.
‘And what have you analysed recently?’ he asks, sipping his beer. ‘Do you think we’re going to feel the fallout of all that financial stuff going down in America?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Really?’ he asks. ‘How bad? And what the hell even is a subprime mortgage anyway?’
I shrug, sip my beer. I’ve clocked a sign saying the park is a no-alcohol zone. Whoops. ‘Mate, I don’t know what’s going on over there. It’s trickling through here, and it could be a gentle current or it could be a storm.’
‘I think you’ve mixed your weather metaphors,’ he says. ‘So a little old illustrator like me had best stop spendingmoney on new phones and start hunkering down, do you reckon – just in case? It’s always the little guy who suffers, isn’t it?’
‘Usually,’ I say. ‘But don’t panic too soon, you know? I’m not sure it’s going to be quite like the last recession. I knew someone whose parents walked into their building society and simply handed their house keys over. They couldn’t pay their mortgage.’
‘I remember seeing it all on the news,’ he says. ‘I was only a kid, though. My parents worked so hard to come out of that on the other side with a roof over our heads. Shielded me from all the panic, I reckon.’
I look at Teddy and Oliver – so small.
Andy says, ‘It’s our job, though, isn’t it, as parents, to shield our kids from all the panic?’
We watch them kicking a ball back and forth, missing each other by miles, as usual. ‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘It is.’
‘Right.’ Andy pulls me out of the very unbirthday-like funk we’ve pushed ourselves into. ‘Where did you say we’re feeding the kids? McDonald’s is easy. Oliver likes the nuggets.’
I give Andy a look. ‘Samantha won’t like that,’ I reply. ‘Teddy’s never been to McDonald’s. He’s only on organic food.’
‘I don’t miss being married.’ Andy shudders suddenly. ‘Imagine being told by your missus you can’t go and eat where you want. It’s barbaric.’
He has a point. Teddy catches on. ‘Nuggets,’ he shouts, despite not actually knowing what they are. Oliver and Teddy shout together, both of them laughing because they know I’m about to cave in. I didn’t need much of a push.
‘Come on then,’ I say, picking up the football and shoving it into my rucksack. I clutch Teddy’s hand and we make our way to McDonald’s with our friends.
Of all the presents totalling about £200 that Samantha and I bought Teddy, his prize possession of the whole day is the Kung Fu Panda toy that he got with his Happy Meal.
He’s chuffed to pieces with it, and clutches it the whole way through our dinner in a local pizza restaurant that I’ve chosen for tonight. Samantha eyes it curiously. We’re sharing a bottle of red wine and she’s granted Teddy the rare privilege of an apple juice, rather than his usual rations of water with his children’s pasta. I don’t tell her about the chocolate milkshake he’s also downed today. I tried to bow to her ideas about salt by licking some of it off Teddy’s chips, but after the fifth one I gave up. It was arduous. A little bit of salt once in a while won’t kill him. And sugar, there’s been a lot of that too, but he’s still going to get an ice cream in a few minutes, and birthday cake when we get home.
‘I can’t believe we have a two-year-old,’ Samantha says. ‘Makes me feel old.’
‘Me too, but in a good way. Like an adult.’ I sit with my wife and my child and I do feel a sense of achievement and pride. ‘Do you think Teddy might like a little playmate?’ I’ve had a good amount of Chianti, so I wonder if tonight’s the night we might actually have this discussion.
