It is Saturday, just past midday, and the youngest one is sitting on the sofa with a bowl of cereal between his knees. He is in the middle of an enthusiastic recounting of a fight that broke out at a party he attended the night before, between a guest and some roadmen.
“Where was this party?” I ask.
“Dunno,” he says. “Kilburn somewhere.”
“I see,” I say, “and can you just quickly explain what a roadman is?”
A roadman, I’m told, is a streetwise young person who meets a certain minimum threshold of hardness, and who might well be inclined to turn up at your party without first being extended an invitation.
“Like a gentleman of the road?” I say.
“No,” my wife says. “Your father doesn’t understand.”
“Can you give me an example of a roadman I might know?” I say. It turns out I’m not acquainted with any roadmen.
My wife gets a vicarious thrill from tales of adolescent nightlife, but they invariably make me regret my failure to impose a sunset curfew. If I can’t keep my children penned up, I would at least like to find a way to discourage their honesty.
For the second Saturday running, my wife and I have divergent evening plans. I have a band gig. My wife is invited to the event, but she has let it be known that she isn’t the type of fan who travels to Stoke Newington to hear a 50-minute set comprised of 15% new material. Also, she says, she’s had another offer – a dinner party. She tells me this with a triumphant little smirk, as if to say, “I’m invited to your thing, but you’re not invited to mine.”
An early soundcheck means I’m obliged to set off for Stoke Newington at 3.30pm, but the gig is finished and the car loaded up by 11, and it is not yet midnight when I arrive home to find the oldest one sitting on the sofa with a bowl of cereal between his knees.
“Anyone else back yet?” I say.
The middle one is babysitting; the youngest is out somewhere, fighting with roadmen.
“No,” he says.
I send my wife a one-word text: “home”. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and settle down in front of the TV with the oldest one.
“What are we watching?” I ask.
“This,” he says.
As I bring the glass to my lips, my phone pings in my pocket. It’s a text from my wife that says, “Please come and pick me up,” followed by a nearby address and six Xs. I put my glass down.
“Be right back,” I say.
I get a small thrill from pressing someone else’s doorbell at midnight, when I haven’t been invited. I’m like a roadman, I think. Except I have a car.
Inside, I find a dinner party in the final throes of merriment. As a sober late arrival, I fall somewhere between object of curiosity and figure of fun. I’m seated next to my wife, who seems surprised to see me.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“You just sent me a text,” I say.
“She didn’t send it, I sent it,” another guest says. “Weren’t you tipped off by the six Xs?”
“I was just leaving,” my wife says. “You can walk me.”
“We don’t need to walk,” I say. “I’ve got the car.”
It takes her a long moment to process this. She turns back toward the table. “My baby’s come to take me home!” she shouts. Then she turns back to me, her glasses slightly crooked on her nose. “Take me home, baby,” she says.
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