Page 33 of The Fall-Out

‘What’s this, the tiredness Olympics?’

‘Of course not. I know how hard you work. It’s just, sometimes I wonder if you know how hard I work.’

‘Sure I do. That’s why we put them in nursery three days a week, even though it costs a fucking fortune.’

‘But on the days they’re there – come on, Patch. You’ve seen what carnage it is getting them out of the house in the mornings. And then there’s all the shit I have to do – cleaning, shopping, seeing your mother, all that. And then it’s time to pick them up again and I’ve got them all afternoon and evening until you get back.’

I could hear the tone of my voice changing – no longer calm and soothing, but querulous, almost carping. Dial it down, Naomi, I told myself, or that row you didn’t want to have is going to happen.

‘So what do you want me to do about it?’ His tone had changed too – no longer genial, becoming combative. ‘Jack in my job, and then we can both stay home and do the shopping?’

‘Patch, don’t be daft. Like I say, when you’re here, it would be nice if you spent a bit of quality time with your children. That’s all.’

‘I take them to swimming every Saturday.’

Sure you do, Dad of the Year. Giving me a precious one-hour window which I spent – if I was honest – messing about on my phone, jumping guiltily to my feet and dragging the Hoover out when it was nearly time for them to get home.

‘And they love it,’ I said. ‘Just like they’d have loved it if you’d given them their bath and put them to bed just now.’

‘Toby won’t settle for me,’ he pointed out, as if our son’s behaviour was some force of nature beyond his control. ‘When I try, he just yells for you.’

‘Of course he does.’ I could hear my voice rising again. ‘Because I do it every bloody night and it’s what he’s used to.’

‘Because you’re here every bloody night and I’m not.’

And here we were again, right in the middle of the same circular argument we’d had dozens of times before.

‘I’d just like some time to myself,’ I pleaded. ‘Like you do, when you leave the house at six three times a week to go to the gym.’

‘Do you seriously think I like having to drag myself out of bed at five thirty?’

Well, obviously. Because otherwise you wouldn’t do it.

But I didn’t get a chance to say that.

‘If you want to go to the gym, knock yourself out,’ he went on. ‘I’m not stopping you. You can get up and go right now if you want.’

He was right, of course. I could, if I wanted to.

‘I would.’ I felt like I was caught in a trap – the trap of an argument I wasn’t going to win. ‘But come on, I’m tired. Like I told you. It’s eight o’clock and I just want to eat and go to bed.’

‘And? That’s what we’re going to do, isn’t it? Eat and go to bed. Living the dream.’

‘Fine.’ My glass was empty and I was fresh out of ideas, too. ‘Set the table. I’ll cook the pasta.’

‘Want me to make a salad?’

Aware that the point I’d been trying to make had been – again – lost in the familiar pattern of our bickering, Patch became conciliatory. He filled up my wine glass without being asked, made a dressing for the salad, complimented my puttanesca sauce, asked how the children had got on at their street dance session that afternoon.

And I should probably have left it there. Taken the easy way out, gone to bed, accepted that this was a situation of my own making and wasn’t about to change.

But I didn’t.

When we’d eaten and I was ferrying the dishes from table to counter while Patch – still in co-operative mode – stacked the dishwasher, I asked, ‘What were you doing on your phone earlier, anyway?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The kids were clambering all over you. They wanted their dad, and you just blanked them. What was so important?’

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