Private Lives

54



The weather had finally turned, the long hot summer slipping suddenly into melancholy autumn in just an afternoon. Light rain spotted the pavement and a brisk wind whipped off the river, making Matt wish he had worn his trench coat rather than this thin summer suit jacket. He looked up at the leaden grey skies, surprised at how jittery he was feeling. He’d had dinner with his father on numerous occasions before; always at some flash restaurant where everyone knew Larry’s name and would approach his table to exchange ribald anecdotes while Matthew fixed his gaze on his carrots and wished he was somewhere, anywhere, else. Tonight he was eating at Larry’s house; something that to most people would sound everyday and mundane. Yet this felt so much more significant. Matt had not eaten with his father, at his house, since he was four years old and it was the Donovan family home. Tonight didn’t feel just like supper. It felt like the start of a new family life. Or perhaps a way of claiming back a lost life that had been snatched away from him.

Larry answered the door in a white apron scarred with something crimson.

‘What’s all this?’ said Matt, smiling.

‘You said you wanted supper, so I’m cooking for my son. How hard can it be?’

‘I had rather assumed you would be getting some famous chef in to do the hard work.’

Larry waved his hand dismissively as he walked back into the house. ‘Chefs? I’ve seen those telly programmes. They just drizzle olive oil on everything and bang it in the oven. I’m perfectly capable of that.’

Matt handed his father a bottle of wine and followed him into the warm kitchen. Whatever Larry was cooking did smell delicious. It reminded Matthew of the early days of his marriage, when Carla had just given up work and used to keep the house smelling wonderful with expensive candles and Waitrose suppers.

‘What’s cooking?’

‘Coq au vin.’

Larry held the bottle up, casting a critical eye over the label. Grunting, he quickly uncorked it, then pulled the roasting tin from the oven and poured Matt’s Merlot over the top of it.

‘That should perk her up a bit,’ he said.

‘Shit, Dad, that cost me forty quid.’

‘Good food is made from good ingredients,’ Larry quipped, closing the oven door with a clang. ‘Anyway, I’ve already got something waiting for us,’ he added, disappearing into the next room.

Matt walked over to the far wall, where dozens of photographs had been hung in smart black frames. There were some of Larry and Loralee’s wedding, and their honeymoon too, somewhere hot and beachy with the groom in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Then there was a series of pictures of Larry with famous clients, and shaking hands with Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela. The biggest photo was of him laughing with Bill Clinton, looking like old friends.

‘Now that figures,’ murmured Matthew with a bittersweet smile, realising how little he knew about his father’s life but excited by the idea of hearing some of the stories behind these pictures.

Larry came back holding a balloon of red wine aloft.

‘Here, try this,’ he said. ‘One of the great bottles of claret of the twentieth century.’

‘Sounds expensive,’ said Matthew, sniffing the wine.

‘It was. I’ve just been waiting for an occasion to drink it.’

They clinked their glasses together and each took a seat at the oak-topped island in the middle of the kitchen. It was funny: there had been a time, not so long ago, when the thought of having a convivial supper with Larry Donovan would have been impossible. Matthew had been too angry, too resentful. He had grown up embarrassed by his father and ashamed of the failure of his family. It wasn’t the missed Christmases and birthdays and graduations that had upset him; it was all the little things. The disapproving whispers at the school gate, the sight of other dads having a kickabout with their kids in the park, the lack of anyone to ask about girls, shaving, even sport. His mother had done her best, trying to be enthusiastic about Lego and Action Man and rugby, stretching herself thin as she tried to juggle her career and Matthew’s needs. She was a stoic, independent woman who neither encouraged contact between father and son nor badmouthed Larry to Matt either. It was as if Larry barely existed. But the truth was, Matt had thought about his father a lot, never sure if Larry was some kind of monstrous bogeyman or whether life would be more exciting with this unreliable, but unpredictable man in it. And that was what he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive his father for. For abandoning him. For being able to cut him out of his life as if he was a piece of gristle on a prime cut of fillet steak. Since he’d become a father himself, it was something he felt more fiercely.

As if he was reading his thoughts, Larry gave his son a slow smile.

‘Who’d have thought we’d be doing this, eh?’

Matthew nodded. He felt bad about their argument in the pub, especially when his father was clearly not recovered from his heart attack. Still, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the Hollywood ending.

‘So where’s Loralee?’ he asked, keen to change the subject.

‘She’s out,’ said Larry quickly.

‘Good.’

Larry raised an eyebrow.

‘I don’t think she likes me coming round.’

His father shrugged. ‘She’s jealous of you.’

‘Of me?’

Larry waved his glass at Matt.

‘Well, she’s jealous of us, what we could be. I think she liked it as it was before.’

Matt had always wondered about Larry and Loralee’s relationship. Was his father really arrogant enough to think that Loralee had married him for his sparkling wit and virile good looks, or had they struck the classic ‘Chelsea bargain’ of money and stability in exchange for youth and beauty?

‘I bet she hated you giving me the firm,’ said Matt quietly.

Larry swilled the wine around the bottom of his glass in wide circles.

‘I have enough money. The law’s been good to me. I wanted it to be good to my son too. After everything that’s happened, I suppose it was the best way of telling you that I loved you.’

Matt felt a spike of emotion so strong he thought it would knock him off his bar stool.

‘You could have just said I love you.’ He grinned. ‘But thank you,’ he added slowly.

They sat there and smiled at each other, and Matt knew then that their relationship had mellowed.

‘You know Loralee is having an affair?’ said Larry, still caught up in their moment of complicity.

Matt looked at him in shock. ‘What? You’ve only been married three months.’

‘Like that ever stopped anyone,’ he said. ‘Me included.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘It’s more what I was hoping you could do for me.’

Matt felt himself move into professional mode.

‘Of course, Dad, anything. Obviously I couldn’t actually represent you, but . . .’

Larry put his hand on top of his son’s. It looked smaller, weaker than Matt remembered.

‘You misunderstand,’ he said. ‘I was rather hoping you would check on the cats next Friday. Feed them. Loralee insists they have Jersey milk, you see. I’d get the housekeeper to do it, but she’s going back to Poland on Friday.’

‘The cats?’ frowned Matt. ‘What about Loralee?’

‘I’m taking her away for the week. Somewhere fancy.’

‘When you know she’s having an affair?’ said Matt incredulously.

Larry gave him a sad smile.

‘I’m not stupid,’ he said quietly. ‘Would Loralee be with me if I was thirty and poor?’ He shook his head. ‘I think we both know the answer to that one. And I know it looks pathetic, a man my age with a woman like her. People see us together, they think she’s only after me for my money. Well maybe that’s so, but the truth is . . .’ Larry’s voice caught in his throat. ‘The truth is, Matty, I love her. I open my eyes in the morning and I look at her lying next to me, and I think how lucky I am to be with her. I know you think – everyone thinks – she’s just a gold-digger, but she’s been good to me. Through the illness, I don’t suppose it’s been easy for her.’

‘But you can’t just pretend she’s not having an affair.’

Larry waved his hand dismissively. ‘I tell myself it’s just sex. Since the heart attack, I’ve not exactly been active in that department.’

‘Dad . . .’ began Matthew, but Larry squeezed his hand.

‘It’s what I tell myself,’ he repeated, and Matthew knew that this particular conversation was finished. They sat in silence as darkness fell outside, sipping their wine, the rich smell of the meal filling the kitchen.

‘So how about you?’ said Larry finally. ‘Seen any more of Carla since her separation?’

Matt rubbed his chin.

‘I slept with her,’ he said in the spirit of shared secrets.

He felt a wave of relief that he had finally told someone. Granted, it was embarrassing discussing such things with your father, but Larry had more experience with difficult women than any man he knew.

‘My, my. It has been all go in the bedroom department.’

Part of Matthew wanted to bury the thought of what had happened between himself and Carla and put it down to the raised emotions of the situation, but he knew he had to talk about it, to try and make sense of what he wanted to happen next, because he was struggling to do it on his own.

‘Does she want to get back together with you?’ asked Larry.

‘I don’t know. She’s in Ibiza. We’re meeting for dinner when she gets back.’

‘And how do you feel about getting back together?’

This was the difficult part. If you’d asked him two, three years ago whether he wanted to get back with the beautiful ex-wife whom he had loved and who had hurt him so much, the answer, despite himself, would have been an unequivocal yes. But everything felt much more complicated now. For the first time in a long time he felt happy, secure, confident in his own skin and the life he had built for himself. He had got used to being alone, and in many ways, he enjoyed it.

‘She’s a beautiful woman.’ He meant the sex, of course, but he didn’t want to elaborate any further; Larry was still his dad, after all.

‘Do you love her, or are you just lonely?’ asked Larry.

How were you supposed to tell the difference after so long? thought Matt, opening his mouth to speak.

‘The day at the New Forest, Jonas was so happy . . .’

‘I didn’t ask how Jonas felt about it,’ replied Larry.

Matt shifted in his chair. ‘But this is everything to do with Jonas. I’m his dad. We’re a family. If that’s not a bloody good reason to get back together again, I don’t know what is.’

‘So you think you should get back with Carla because of what Jonas feels?’

Matt sank into a silence, defeated by the question. He dealt with this every single day of his life. He saw first hand why people stayed in relationships and why others left. Whenever clients asked him for advice – ‘What do I do now?’ – he always gave them the same answer: there was no right thing to do when your relationship faltered. The only thing to do was what felt right to you.

Larry put his empty glass on the table.

‘Let me ask you another question. Would you have wanted your mother to stay with me, even if neither of us was happy?’

‘But Mum was happy. And then you had an affair and left us. Why did you do that? Were you really that unhappy, or was it just a case of the grass is greener?’

Larry stood up.

‘Stay there,’ he said, and walked out of the kitchen. Matt could hear his slow footsteps going upstairs. He was away for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was holding a small envelope.

‘What’s that?’

‘A letter to me. From your mother,’ said Larry, handing it to Matthew.

‘Should I read it now?’

‘I think so.’

Matt pulled out the single sheet of ageing cream vellum, instantly recognising the small, precise writing of his mother. He began to read.



Dear Larry,



How do you say goodbye to your husband and the father of your son? By letter, I think. I’m not sure I can say the things I want to say without turning back, retreating into a situation that’s wrong for both of us. Your affair with that woman was a betrayal, you don’t need me to tell you that, but I was surprised you came back. I was even more surprised I took you back. But I did it for our son. I did it to be a family again.



So why does that decision now feel wrong? Because a family is more than three people living in a house together. Because when you come home every day, I know that you would rather be somewhere else, with someone else. Because one day Matthew will be old enough to ask why his parents don’t sleep in the same bedroom, and I don’t want to tell him that it’s because I can’t bear to touch you. Not after your affair. But mostly because we both love our son and we always want what’s best for him. I want Matthew to be brought up around love, not around two people who have nothing to say to each other any more, who have broken whatever they once had. We don’t want him to grow up feeling guilty that he was the only glue binding two unhappy, resentful people together.



Love dies if you don’t water it – I think you said that to me once – and that’s what happened between you and me, Larry. Love isn’t an obligation. It’s a life force, a gift of nature; love is about finding that one person who makes you feel so happy your heart could sing. We had it for a while, but it’s gone; we both have to face the truth of that. Perhaps we can find it again, somewhere else. I hope so.



Yours truly, Katherine





Matthew folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope.

‘Mum left you?’ he said. ‘You left us. She told me that.’

Larry fetched the decanter and filled Matthew’s glass, putting it down again without filling his own.

‘For five amazing years we were so happy, me and your mother,’ he said. ‘I doubt anyone anywhere was ever as in love as we were at the start. But after she’d had you and thrown herself back into her career? Well, things changed. She had papers published, she was being asked to lecture abroad, there were whispers of a professorship one day.’ He shrugged. ‘I was busy too, of course, and I’d come home from work long after you’d gone to bed. Kathy would be in the study, working. She made time for you and her job, but there was not enough time for me. I’m not making excuses, just trying to give you some context.’

He held up his hands.

‘So I had an affair. My first one. They become quite addictive once you cross the line of morality, but that’s another story. This first one, her name was Jan, a client’s secretary. Twenty-one, pretty, plus she thought I was fabulous and I drank every drop of flattery as if it was good port. I honestly thought I was in love with her. Looking back, I was just in love with how she made me feel.’

He paused, as if he was reluctant to go on. ‘Your mother found out – deep down I think I wanted her to – and kicked me out. But a month later I came back. For you,’ he said earnestly.

‘But if you came back for me, why didn’t you stay?’

Larry tapped the letter in front of Matt.

‘I think she says it best in there. Love isn’t an obligation; you can’t love someone out of duty. We’d changed as people, but we hadn’t changed together. She resented me, my long hours, my affair, and I suppose she’d replaced me with a new passion: her own work. And you, of course. On my part, perhaps I couldn’t cope with a strong, strident woman like Katherine. It was the seventies, remember. Everyone still expected husbands and wives to fall into their prescribed roles.’

‘So why did she keep us apart?’

Larry sighed.

‘In part I suppose she was angry, resentful, and wanted to prove that you two could get along just fine without me. But I didn’t fight for you. I let my pride get the better of me and I walked away. I walked away from you, and for that, I’ll forever be sorry.’

Matthew could see tears glossing over the whites of his father’s eyes.

‘I know you’re a better father than me, Matt. I know it’s not ideal living apart from Jonas, but you’ve shown that you don’t need to live with him to be a brilliant dad. Get back with Carla because you love her, because she makes your heart beat faster,’ he pleaded. ‘Not out of duty. We both love Jonas too much to want him to be brought up in an unhappy household.’

Matthew gave a small smile.

‘You make it all sound so simple.’

‘I’ve had a lot of experience of getting it wrong.’

They both laughed together.

‘Oh, and can you do one more thing for me?’ said Larry, getting up.

‘Sure, what is it?’

Larry yanked open the oven, sending a cloud of thick grey smoke rolling up towards the ceiling.

‘Can you call the pizza place?’ he coughed. ‘I think dinner’s off.’