Lessons for a Sunday Father by Claire Calman

Sorry. I’ll get it tomorrow. Promise.”
    She sighs.
    “You said that yesterday. It’s not as if I ask you to do much.”
    “I said sorry. You weren’t planning to wear it in the middle of the night, were you?” I take off my trousers.
    “Scott?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Why are your pants inside-out?”
    “What? They’re not. Are they?”
    “Apparently.”
    I look down. Oh, fuck. Fuckety-fuck.
    I shrug. Stay cool. Don’t get flustered.
    “Must have put them on like that this morning. Getting more senile by the day. Soon be time to send me to the Twilight Home, eh?”
    Gail’s voice is cold as ice.
    “You didn’t. I remember.”
    “What—did you carry out an inspection? Course I did. Must’ve done.”
    She turns round from the mirror then and stands up.
    “I noticed your pants this morning because those are the ones with the hole on the left-hand side which you promised you would throw away.”
    “Hole? What hole?” Playing for time. I feel for the hole. Shit. It’s now on the right. Remain calm. Make a joke of it. “What are you, Inspector Morse?”
    “Who was she, Scott?” Her voice is calm and low. I can barely hear her, but I figure now’s not the time to ask her to speak up a bit.
    “Now come on! You’ve been spoiling for a fight all evening. What’s all this about? If you had a crap day, then fine—just say so, but don’t start taking it out on me. That’s so typical of you. Just because a person’s pants are inside out doesn’t mean—”
    “What does it mean then?”
    Behind her, the mirror of her dressing-table catches my eye.
    “Look, you must have seen me in the mirror this morning. That’s why you thought it was on the other side. But they were already wrong, right?”
    “Wrong. You’re the one who’s wrong. Right?”
    It would have been better if she’d been shouting at me, crying and hysterical, then I could be the reasonable one concentrating on trying to calm her down. But she was already calm, which was much more scary. And I was running out of ideas.
    “I remember now. I—I did take my things off after a job but only because—because I got a splinter of glass in my leg so I had to take my trousers off.”
    “And you removed your pants for what reason exactly?”
    “Because there was this sharp bit. Look!” I stab at a point on my hip. “I thought I’d got a bit of glass right here, so I took them off in the toilet at work to check, but I couldn’t see anything and I put them right back on. That was it. End of story. Ask anyone. Lee was there. Ask him. Ask Harry.”
    She just stands there, her arms folded, eyes cold and shining—like glass.
    “
You’re a lying bastard!”
Her voice is suddenly loud, the words snapping out like blows to my belly. “And you smelt of some awful perfume or soap earlier. You slept with someone else, I know you did!”
    “I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.” I’m going for calm with a touch of outrage. “I can see how you might have got that impression, but you’re just wrong. Honestly.”
    “You swear?”
    “Yes, I swear. I said so, didn’t I? Now come on, love. You know I’d never do that.”
    “What on?”
       *   *   *
    Can you believe it? I mean, she’s wasted as a sodding doctor’s receptionist, she should be a lawyer. I was still going for the What—me? approach.
    “Come on, Gail. Let’s be sensible now. What do you mean, what on? What, like the Bible? I think you’re getting things all out of proportion. When’s your period due?”
    Now, normally of course, I might think that but as I value my life, I don’t say it. Nothing sends Gail into a strop faster than suggesting she has PMT and it’s all down to her hormones. Don’t know why—you think she’d be pleased to have an excuse. When I’m in a mood, it’s just I’m being an awkward bugger and there’s the end of it. But I thought it was a good diversionary tactic, like lobbing a hand grenade out the front while you escape out the back.
    She