Football makes Tom miserable, more so because he’s acutely aware that a nine-year-old should never admit to being miserable in the context of football. He supports Arsenal, which has won him friends at his North London prep school, but he hates playing the game. He hates playing because his limbs are often sore from eczema. Mud can actually sting but tracksuit trousers can catch and snag on chapped skin. Though his teammates are pals enough not to comment, Tom still catches them glancing at his body, unintentionally repelled. However, what makes dictation and football bearable is that, on Tuesdays, he stays with his dad and stepmum at their cool place in Hampstead.
They actually only live a mile or so from his home in Swiss Cottage and, though Tom spends every Tuesday, Wednesday and every other weekend with them, and any time in between that he fancies, the novelty value is still high. His dad’s place is closer to school than his other home so instead of his mum slaloming her Renault through the school run (which has its plus points because she appears unaware how much she swears) Tom strolls down Hampstead High Street with his stepmum. And, without actually holding hands (he’s nine now, someone might see), Tom can still subliminally tug her into a detour to Starbucks for hot chocolate.
Tom’s had Pip for nearly four years. Her presence at the school gates continues to provide much intrigue. Being a clown by trade, Pip is well known to many of Tom’s classmates from the birthday-party circuit of their younger years. She’s also been to assembly to talk about the other work she does, as a clown at children’s hospitals. She did the splits and a flikflak on the stage, bonked the headmaster on the head with a squeaky plastic hammer, made a motorbike from balloons in four seconds flat and Tom was the centre of attention all that day. His friends still make a point of saying hullo to her when she collects him. Invariably, she has rushed to school from the hospital, with her hair still in skew-whiff pigtails and traces of make-up on her face. Far more exotic than the widespread Whistles and ubiquitous Nicole Farhi worn by the other mums.
*
This Tuesday was no different. There was Pip, eye-catching in orange-and-purple stripy tights and clodhopping boots, chatting amiably with the other Hampstead mums.
‘Hi, I’m starving. It was shepherd’s pie for lunch. Heinous,’ said Tom, keen to drag her away.
‘Dear oh dear,’ said Pip, ‘heinous shepherd’s pie? I’d turn vegetarian, if I were you.’
‘No way, José,’ Tom retched. ‘The veggie option is always vomtastic.’
‘Vomtastic,’ Pip marvelled, planning to use the word in her clowning. ‘How was football?’
Tom gave a small shrug. ‘Cold.’
‘Are you angling for a brownie and hot choc?’ Pip nudged him.
‘If you say so,’ Tom said.
‘Well, your dad won’t be home till sevenish,’ Pip reasoned with herself, as much as with Tom.
‘It would be very good for my energy,’ Tom said not entirely ingenuously. ‘Starbucks would really help my homework.’
Pip laughed. ‘Come on, tinker,’ she said. They walked towards the High Street. ‘I had a sad day at the hospital. It’s lovely to see you.’
Tom slipped his hand into hers. Just for a few strides or so.
Pip looked at the kitchen table laden with the remains of supper later that evening, then she looked at her husband and his son embroiled in PlayStation. She put her hands on her hips and cleared her throat. They didn’t look up.
‘Hullo?’ she called, as if testing whether anyone was there.
Zac glanced up briefly from the console, but not briefly enough to prevent Tom taking advantage.
‘Dad!’ Tom objected. ‘Concentrate!’
And then Pip decided she’d just smile and ask if anyone wanted a drink. She still found it difficult to gauge her boundaries as a stepmother. Her own standards, based on her childhood and her family’s dynamic, said that a nine-year-old should help clear the table, or at least ask to be excused a chore. But she also acknowledged that this father and son hadn’t seen each other for a week and Zac had been first down from the table challenging Tom to a PlayStation final-of-finals. So she tidied up and allowed them their quality time.
She glanced at the clock and felt relieved that it really was nearing Tom’s bedtime. Zac had worked so late the last couple of nights she felt she hadn’t seen him at all. ‘I’ll run your bath, Tom,’ she said.
‘One more game,’ Zac called to her.
‘I’ll run it slowly,’ Pip said.
Despite actually trying his damndest to win, Zac lost at PlayStation. Far from being wounded, his pride soared at Tom’s skill and after a noisy bathtime, he cuddled up with his son for a lengthy dip into James and the Giant Peach. Pip could hear the soft timbre of Zac’s reading voice. She poured two glasses of wine and organized Tom’s school bag for the morning.
Zac appeared and made the fast-asleep gesture with his hands. ‘He was tired,’ he said.
‘Well, it’s late for him,’ said Pip, offering a glass of wine.
Zac looked at his watch. ‘I just have a little work to do,’ he told Pip who looked instantly deflated, ‘just an hour or so.’ He took the wine, kissed Pip on the lips, squeezed her bottom and disappeared with his laptop. He’s happy, Pip told herself. She looked on the bright side, which was very much her wont. At least it gave her the opportunity to phone Cat, as long as her youngest sister had been able to resist the jet lag on her first day back in the country.
*
Many would say that being a high-flying accountant would have its ups and downs: financial remuneration in return for long hours and often relatively dull work; a bulging pay packet to compensate for a dry grey image. How else would accountants have become such a clichéd race? But the only things grey about Zac Holmes are his eyes which are dark slate to the point of being navy anyway, and the only dry thing about Zac is his sense of humour. If Zac’s looks and his personality had dictated a career, it would have been something on the funky side of creative. But Zac’s brain, with its amazing propensity for figures, decreed accountancy from the outset. Anything else just wouldn’t be logical. Zac likes logic, he likes straightforward solutions and simple answers to even the most complex of problems. Consequently, he never judges anything to be a dilemma because he knows intrinsically that there is always a way to work it all out. Zac believes that problems are merely perceived as such. If you just sit down and think carefully, there’s nothing that can’t be solved. Problems don’t really exist at all, it comes down to attitude. That goes for his personal life as much as his professional. So, when ten years ago, his on-off girlfriend announced she was pregnant a few weeks after a forgettable drunken friendship fuck, Zac welcomed the news with a shrug and easily devised a formula that would suit them all.
2 firm friends + 0 desire to marry/cohabit
(+ never ÷ by £/
June, the mother of his child, can never be an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend because she was neither when Tom was conceived. She’s Zac’s friend and Zac is her friend and for Tom to have parents who are friends is a gift. Tom also has two step-parents. Everyone is friends. It might appear unconventional, but it works. A large family of friends.
Django McCabe may have trawled the sixties, trekking from ashram to commune, hiking from yurt to kibbutz, in search of the same. But he was happy to admit that his eldest niece had found its apotheosis in London NW3.
Pip is hovering. Zac’s hour at his laptop has turned into two.
‘Coffee?’ she offers.
‘No,