Lessons for a Sunday Father by Claire Calman Page A

Well, good bloody luck to her. At least I don’t go round looking like I’ve got a poker up my arse the whole time.
Gail
    It was pathetic, of course, Scott insisted on having a talk, then all he did was trot out the same old excuses—how it was just sex and didn’t mean anything, how lots of couples go through this and it didn’t have to be a big deal. He even told me it wasn’t very good and that she was a bit fat—as if that meant it shouldn’t count. And men are always claiming that we’re the ones who are illogical.
    The worst thing was when he said, “It’s made me realize just how much I really love you.” Oh, well, that’s fine then. Why not do it every week just to make sure? I came this close to hitting him, I really did. I wish I had done, I wish I’d really let rip and screamed at him, but I didn’t. I was using all my energy to hold myself together, my voice getting more and more calm and controlled, every bit of my body tight and stiff. I had to. I thought that if I let go for even a split second, then I’d sort of explode inside-out and become this horrible screaming, crying heap. And then there’d be no Gail any more, just a raw red blob shuddering with rage and fear in the corner.
    I pressed my toes down hard against the floor and pinched the skin on my arms.
    “Honestly, Scott, you’ve had enough time to think about this. Is that really the best you can manage?”
    And, get this, he even had the cheek to say, “But we were getting on so badly—” Well, there was no way I was letting him shift all the blame onto me. Typical Scott. He’s worse than a toddler. If he breaks something, he never says sorry, it’s always, “I don’t know how that happened, it jumped off the shelf. I was nowhere near it.”
    “And sleeping with another woman was your idea of a miracle cure for our problems, was it?”
    “No, course not,” he said, looking all awkward, like a teenager. Like Nat, in fact. “It’s just—I didn’t know how to make it better.”
    “It’s not exactly making an appointment with Relate, is it, Scott?”
    “I’d have
gone.
You never
said
!”
    Can you believe it? What is he, twelve years old?
    “That’s you all over, isn’t it?” I practically screeched at him, while still trying to keep my voice down. “'You never said.’ Why the hell is it
my
job? I suppose it’s like the way it’s
my
job to be cook, cleaner and general household dogsbody. Why is everything up to me all the time? And anyway—anyway, you’re a pathetic liar. No way would you have gone for marriage guidance even if I had suggested it—and you know it.”
    “I might have.”
    I laughed then. I actually laughed. He seemed to be getting younger and younger. Before, he seemed about twelve. Now, he looked only about four years old, saying “I might have” trying to defy teacher with his bottom lip stuck out.
    He sniffed.
    “Well, you wouldn’t want some nosy do-gooder asking personal questions about our sex life either.”
    “Why ever not? Unlike some people in this room,
I’ve
got nothing to hide.”
    Then I just felt so sick of it all, of him sitting there trying to make out that he was this poor, sweet, innocent boy who just happened to have made this tiny little mistake that any other woman would have forgiven without a second thought. He acted as if I was being a loathsome bitch trying to victimize him and it wasn’t his fault that he’d cheated on me. He never takes responsibility, so he gets to be the one who’s spontaneous and larks about the whole time, while look who gets stuck with having to be the sensible grown-up. So I made some dig about him being like a child, it was a silly thing to say, but it just came out and suddenly I thought maybe I’d gone too far. His face darkened, his jaw thrust forward as if he really was a little boy doing his best not to cry.
    “That is well out of order, Gail. You really have crossed the line now.” Then he started shouting: “I