‘I’ve got a party on Friday,” the middle one says. It’s supper time, and we are sitting round the kitchen table, like normals.
“That’s the night before mum goes away,” I say.
“I’ll be here when she leaves,” he says.
“But you won’t be awake,” I say.
“You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” my wife says.
“I’ve survived having an absentee father all this time – I can last two weeks,” he says.
“A what?” I say.
“Whose party is it?” my wife asks.
“I’m not an absentee father,” I say. “I’m positively underfoot.”
I spend the next morning considering the possibility that I have grown absent even in my unyielding presence. I decide to spend a fortnight practising a form of parenting so intense that my children will beg for the return of my light-touch stewardship.
That afternoon, my wife presents me with my personal printout of the calendar for the coming two weeks. On the Saturday it says “MUM TO INDIA”. On the Sunday it says “TRANSVESTITE WRESTLING”.
“I’ll probably just take them along to that,” I say.
“There are two sixth-form open days,” she says, pointing. “This one is optional.”
“Noted,” I say, drawing a big X through it.
“Constance here, Constance here, Constance here,” she says, indicating the three days in the second week when I’m away and the daughter of a friend is staying in order to keep chaos at bay. Although she is now in her mid-20s, I still think of Constance as an agent of chaos herself.
“She has keys,” my wife says. “There’s a copy of this on the fridge.”
“OK,” I say.
On Friday night, she shows me her new travelling outfit, complete with headscarf.
“Nice,” I say. “Modest.”
“I’m in a complete panic,” she says.
“It’ll be great. Eat, pray, love, whatever,” I say.
On Saturday morning, my wife gets into a taxi while both boys are still asleep. I walk the dogs, clean the kitchen and run the dishwasher, which is supposed to be fixed, but isn’t quite. In the afternoon, I go to the supermarket, push a load of laundry through the system and walk the dogs again. I make a simple, wholesome supper for three, but discover one of the boys isn’t home.
The next morning I take the dogs out, clean the kitchen and rerun the dishwasher, more in hope than expectation. I begin to realise just how disruptive the normal routine is to my normal routine. Afterwards, I try to tackle some work I should have finished the previous day, but I end up staring at my computer screen for an hour.
“Morning, handsome,” a voice behind me says. I turn to see Constance standing in my office doorway. I look down at the relevant day on my calendar, but it doesn’t say “CONSTANCE HERE”. It just says “TRANSVESTITE WRESTLING”.
“Morning,” I say.
“I had a dinner party nearby that went late,” she says. “I texted you.”
“Did you?” I say.
“Are you writing about how your wife has gone away and I’m your new wife?” she says.
“Not exactly,” I say.
“Good idea,” she says. “Save it for next week.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll hold it back.”
“Gotta go,” she says. “Thanks for having me.”
At lunch, the middle one tries to claim he has too much homework to go to transvestite wrestling.
“Ignore what it says on the fridge,” I say. “Technically, they’re drag queens.”
“I might not go either,” the youngest says. “I’ve got maths and French.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “We’re all going to drag queen wrestling, together. Put your shoes on.”
I think: absentee father, my arse.
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